


The Mark of the Beast

by asuralucier



Series: The Second Coming [1]
Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF!Helen, Book restoration, Borrowing from You because omg that dungeon, Canon Typical Everything, Claustrophobia, Everyone wants John Wick, F/M, Gen, John can't have nice things, John loves his books, John loves his dogs, John loves his wife, Life hack - the best time to gather a mafia army is before dinnertime, Literature, M/M, Non Sexual Child Abuse/Neglect, Poker, What is Normal? Seriously Asking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-03-10 01:51:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18928891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: ”Did it bother you? What she did for a living?”There is probably not a correct answer to this question, but John feels it very keenly, that the other man is testing him. He forces himself to expel a breath and to relax his shoulders. “She was my wife and she gave up something for me. No, it doesn’t really bother me.”“You’re soft and you have no spine,” Santino studies him, like one studies a very interesting specimen of insect. “Not really seeing the appeal.”Or: John Wick is (kind of) an average Joe who runs a secondhand bookshop in the middle of New York City. By the time Santino D’Antonio appears to call in the Marker owed to him by John’s wife, a retired assassin, Helen has died.However, a Marker is still a Marker, and Santino isn’t the most reasonable of men.





	1. A Favor

**Author's Note:**

> Just dropping this while I finish up edits to IoM! I have to admit, I'm not the biggest John/Santino fan in the world, but this might yet convince me. I hope you enjoy!

“We’re closed for lunch,” John says without looking up from the register when the bell affixed to the door jangles. “We reopen again at two. Please come back then.” 

“I won’t be here long,” says a strange voice belonging to a man John doesn’t recognize. “Provided you help me out a little. I think you can. Are you John Wick?” 

“I’m John, yes,” out of a sense of regular paranoia, John checks his nametag. It is indeed a bit crooked and he fixes it. “Did you order a book?” 

For the first time, John lifts his eyes to take in this unruly customer. The man is, he has to admit, nicely dressed like he’s stepped out of some sort of crime drama movie and he's got wild curly hair that probably could have used some gel or more attention in general. The precise way in which the man doesn’t care about his hair shouldn't bother John so much because he understands the compulsion, too. Sometimes a guy just wants to be lazy. 

But it's not the same, definitely not.

“I would like you to tell me where your wife is,” says the man. “And then I’ll be out of your hair. Quick and painless.” 

John stiffens, and he feels the reproachful coldness of his wedding ring around his finger. It has been some time, but he can’t bear to remove it. 

“Is this some kind of joke?” 

“I am looking for Helen Wick. Or no, I’m looking for Helen Quinn. That was her maiden name, before she shacked up with you,” the man steps up to the counter and he isn’t very tall, John notes, but the force of his stare pins John to his spot right behind the register. This is clearly a guy who is used to getting his way. 

John swallows, “Well, I can tell you where she is.” 

“And where’s that?” 

John has to think, “Mirror Lake.” 

“Upstate?” 

“Yeah, I took her up there after she’d been cremated.” 

For the first time, the man’s expression changes. It’s not smarmy and knowing like he is under no delusion of his own power, that he is indeed better than John, who has worked in the very same bookstore since he was twelve years old. He’d done a stint in the Marines, but otherwise, it’d been all about books. It's an unusual life, but also the only life that John has ever known.

The man’s eyes widen, like he’s been punched in the gut, “She’s…”

“Dead, yes.” 

“Since when? From what?” The man sounds increasingly panicked, like something is steadily strangling his vocal chords. 

“Since a year, three months, seventeen days. From ALS.” 

The man seems to take this in. He sucks in a deep breath and reaches into his pocket. He unearths a black box, scarcely bigger than the box that had once held Helen’s engagement ring, years and years ago. John had saved up for it and paid for a three-carat diamond in installments. Helen deserved the best and he didn’t feel bad about skipping lunch for six months when she’d beamed at him and said, “Yes.” 

“Open that,” the man says. 

John does. It seems to be a weighty medallion-shaped thing, with a bit of blood staining its middle.

“That is gold, and that is blood,” the man tells him. “It is proof that your wife owes me a debt.” 

John feels slightly ill. He has to put down the coin and take a breath of his own. “Is this the Marker that she’s told me about?” 

His question seems to throw the man for a loop, “If you know that’s a Marker.”

“Then I know what she used to do,” John nods. “There were no secrets between us. But I don’t know your name.” 

“My name is Santino. Santino D’Antonio,” says the man. “I am sorry to hear about your wife, John. If I can call you John.” 

“You’re probably only feeling sorry because she can’t help you with whatever you want help with,” John counters. It occurs to him that it might not be the smartest thing to say to someone like Santino D’Antonio but they’re in the middle of New York City in broad daylight. The street outside is teeming with pedestrians and someone would have seen him come in here. Besides, judging by the way Santino talks, if he’d wanted to do something, he would have done it already. John’s something of a gambler and he likes these odds. 

“You really have no idea who I am, do you?” 

John shrugs. 

“Let me put it this way,” Santino starts, and then he has to stop again, ”Did it bother you? What she did for a living?” 

There is probably not a correct answer to this question, but John feels it very keenly, that the other man is testing him. He forces himself to expel a breath and to relax his shoulders. “She was my wife and she gave up something for me. No, it doesn’t really bother me.” 

“You’re soft and you have no spine,” Santino studies him, like one studies a very interesting specimen of insect. “Not really seeing the appeal.”

“Yeah? Lucky me, I don’t exactly want to appeal to you,” says John. It’s nearly two o’ clock, he’s suddenly aware that afternoon stragglers will come in here and find a very angry, unreasonable version of Tony Soprano trying to twist his arm. Probably not a great look. 

He goes to the door and replaced the _Be Back at 2PM_ sign with _Closed_ , and every time he takes a step, he can feel Santino’s eyes digging into his back like a knife. 

“That’s much better,” Santino nods. “Who do I have to kill to get a cup of coffee around here?” 

John studies him, “I’ve only got instant. Decaf. I can make you some but it’s not going to be great.” 

“What kind of monster drinks decaf?” Santino’s eyes widen. 

“Me,” John says, “And Helen, actually.” 

Some context: John works at Mooney’s, which is a snug little secondhand gig buried among giants on the Upper East Side. Nowadays, they don’t do a lot of business, but John does do a fair amount of restoration which nearly always garners a pretty penny because only rich people have books like that.

...Then again, Santino D’Antonio doesn’t look like the reading type. He certainly doesn’t know how to read a room. Maybe he has never needed to. 

Point being, Mooney’s is not the kind of place that would keep a gun under the register strictly speaking, but Helen had insisted on it, years and years ago, and John had conceded that it wasn’t altogether a terrible idea. Helen had a way of being very persuasive. 

John’s heart bursts with love, and he cocks the gun, pointing it straight at Santino’s temple. 

“Interesting,” Santino says, not sounding entirely surprised. “You might be interested to know, John, that our world is obsessed with blood. Spilling it, Culling it. If you shoot me, it won’t solve your problem.” 

“I don’t have a problem,” John holds perfectly still. “Okay, I have a rat infestation problem. But I’ve had those before.” 

“You calling me a rat?” 

John shrugs one shoulder, “If the shoe fits. My wife is dead. Just...leave me alone?” He doesn’t like how that ended. Like he’s asking a question that shouldn’t even be asked. Of course John would like to be left alone, but he is also not stupid. Helen has told him things, about the kind of men (and they were, overwhelmingly men, some women, but Helen has always instilled in him that women were worse) that she’s had the pleasure or not really to work with. 

He doubts that men like Santino will simply tuck their tail and run just because he’s asked nicely. 

“Unfortunately,” Santino tucks his hands neatly into his pockets. The Marker in its box stays exactly where it is and John is suddenly newly conscious of the blood stained on it. “I really need this favor.” 

“You’re a friendly guy, go bother someone else for a favor,” John grits out. 

“I don’t ask for favors,” Santino twists his mouth. “And I don’t _ask_. Period.” 

“Yeah, and I don’t take well to being threatened,” John cocks the safety. 

“The Marker must be honored,” Santino says. “As her next of kin, the responsibility falls to you.” 

“I’m not part of your world,” John tells him. “I doubt you’d want me to be, either.” 

“What does that mean?” 

John pulls the trigger and a bullet leaves the gun, grazing Santino near his left cheekbone. The man lets out a hiss, but holds. 

“You seem vain, Santino D’Antonio,” John says. “Maybe you should get that looked at before it scars.” 

“You’re right, John,” Santino shrugs. “You aren’t a part of our world. So maybe I’ll do you a favor I don’t ever do anyone else. I’ll give you some time to think about it.” He strolls out of the store, leaving John wondering how exactly to explain the bullet hole through the shopfront glass. 

 

It turns out that by “some time,” Santino is being stingy and insincere and actually means six hours, not even long enough for John to properly close up shop. 

“ _A rocket launcher came through the window_ ,” Ethan wheezes. “I just. Fucking hell, John. I need air.” 

Ethan Russell is a bright-eyed twenty-nine-year-old who is languishing in a MFA program at New York University and plays Russian folk music on the ukulele in his spare time. He and John are not exactly friends, but they work well enough together and to his credit, when Ethan comes into work, he doesn’t ask John about the piece of thick cardboard fitted over the cracked glass and nods along politely to John’s story about a group of kids and a wayward rock the size of a bullet. They agree to call a glazier to get the door replaced in a day or two. 

But a rocket launcher is kind of hard to ignore, and what John is thinking about now is how a certain Santino D’Antonio now owes him money for inventory. 

“Then breathe,” John says. “Up from your diaphragm, and through your nose.” 

“What?” 

“Something my wife taught me, she did yoga,” John says. “May I?” 

John takes the bag of pure oxygen that Ethan was thinly wheezing into and takes a deep breath. The clear stuff fills his lungs without the usual big city crap and he feels better already. 

“You John Wick?” says a uniform, striding up to them. “I’m Officer Jimmy Mulaney, can I ask you a few questions?” 

“Can it wait until tomorrow?” John says. He stares up at the man from where he is sitting on the curb and Jimmy Mulaney stares back him, his manner guarded and not entirely friendly. John’s first thought is that Jimmy is someone who has been bought off. 

“It can’t,” Jimmy says. “Sorry. Can I just...speak to you? Over here?” 

Ethan is still looking like he might faint. John squeezes his knee in a sort of “man up” kind of way and follows Jimmy a few steps away from where the excitement is still happening. 

“I’m sorry to hear about your bookstore,” Jimmy starts. 

“I just manage it,” John says. “And you might as well get it over with. What do you want?” 

“I’d be interested in hearing about any insurance policies on the building, and anything expensive is kept in the store. Any safes, first editions or whatever.” 

Or whatever.

John thinks about the basement. The basement with its reinforced steel door that should, for all intents and purposes, be fireproof. “The insurance isn’t in my name. It’s in Roland Mooney’s. You know, since the place is called Mooney’s.” He gestures, the sign is still up, but definitely not having a great time; it’s flagging and singed and now reads ‘ONEY’S’. “And we do insure our inventory, but it’s not going to be much. All the expensive stuff is insured too, but privately by their actual owners. I won’t see a cent of that, either.” 

Jimmy writes down something on his pad of paper, “...Roland Mooney? And your relation to him is?” 

“Mooney is my employer; he signs payroll. He adopted me kind of. But it’s not official. He’s had a stroke and his wife functions as his caretaker. Want their address?” 

“Please.” 

“Not until you tell me what this is about.” 

Jimmy shifts his weight from foot to foot, “...Ever get the feeling that someone’s out to get you, John?” 

“Until recently? No.” 

“But recently?” 

John thinks back to Santino strutting around the dusty bookstore as if he owns the fucking place and makes a snap-minute decision. 

“Do you need me to make a statement? I can make one for Ethan too,” John glances back towards the curb. “But please give me until tomorrow.” 

Jimmy thinks, “Okay. Tomorrow. But first thing. Nine o’clock.” 

“I can do that,” John nods. 

 

He takes Ethan home, and Ethan asks if John can stay the night, which is a bit awkward, but not the weirdest thing to have happened today. Ethan lives in a block of student housing which John supposes is just as well. Santino might be too annoyed to try looking for him here.

But at the same time, Santino could probably just blow up the block. John tries his best not to think about that. 

“Are we fired?” Ethan says. “We’re so _fired_.” 

“I”m worried about our insurance,” John says. “Not sure if it covers a fucking rocket launcher. I’’ll have to ask Mrs. Mooney for the policy.” 

Then his phone chirps in his pocket and John stares hard at the screen, willing the blocked number to become something else. Tell him he isn’t so screwed. 

It doesn’t. The phone stops ringing and then starts up ringing again. 

John takes the call and puts the phone to his ear. 

“You’re not at home. That is cute,” Santino D’Antonio’s voice intones at the other end. 

“Who’s --” Ethan starts, but then he quiets under the force of John’s stare. John gets up off the shitty mattress and locks himself in Ethan’s bathroom. 

“You don’t really want to kill me, do you?” 

“I have told you what I want,” Santino says. “And if you don’t do what I want then I can make your life very difficult for you. Shall I tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow at nine o’clock?” 

“You’re going to tell me anyway, even if I say no,” John says. He makes himself as comfortable as possible sitting on the top of Ethan’s toilet. 

“Hey? You’re learning. Our friend Jimmy, the very tenacious cop, is going to tell you that they’ve found your fingerprints on bits of the launcher uncovered at the scene. It’s going to be a bit of a coincidence. One that New York’s finest can’t possibly ignore.” 

“You made that deal with my wife,” John reminds him, and not for the first time either. “Who is dead, Santino.”

“And I said I was sorry,” Santino sighs as if he is actively exhausted from having to pretend to have a decent bone in his body. “Tell you what, I’m going to text you an address. Consider it a good faith gesture.” 

“An address to where?” 

“A place to give you a leg up,” Santino says. “You’ll be safe there. At least, for now.”


	2. The Continental

John leaves Ethan’s and drives back to Mooney’s, or what’s left of it. He goes around back and lets himself into the basement; in all the excitement, everyone seems to have forgotten about its existence. For now, that’s a good thing. 

Thankfully, things still seem in order except for the acrid smell lingering from upstairs and John goes into the glass cage in the middle of the room and removes several of the floorboards. First and foremost, there’s a key, and then a tool box. The space is temperature-controlled and sound-proofed to cater to expensive editions kept on the shelves. 

And other things too, but not so much, recently. 

_”Are you sure this_ isn’t _a sex dungeon?”_

_“It really isn’t a sex dungeon.”_

_“We can make it into one,” Helen grins, all teeth and intention and John has to press her into the one of the bookcases like he’s compelled to breathe in a room without much air._

Guns. Clips. A stack of gold coins that Helen told him were real Spanish doubloons, dug up from the depths of the ocean to be reproduced en masse by the finest, morally undiscerning goldsmiths money could hope to buy. A screwdriver. A hammer. A few discarded, yellowed pages of _Wuthering Heights_. His and hers. 

 

John drives to the address. It isn’t until he arrives at the valet parking that he realizes he knows where this is. Has he been asleep all this time? 

“Sir? I’ll need something from you.” 

“Oh, right,” John extracts a coin from his jacket and hands it over. The man examines the coin with some suspicion but in the end, he waves John on through to the lobby. 

 

The inside of the Continental is excessive, expensive, polished. It’s all entirely too rich for John’s blood. So much so that he feels himself almost curdle, but he makes it up to the concierge desk where a man in a suit is just hanging up the phone. 

“Can I help you?” 

John takes out another coin, “I’m not sure.” 

“Well,” the man looks down at the coin and then up at John again. “It’s what I’m here for. To assist and point you to the right direction. But I’ll need a name from you. The Manager gets cross if we don’t keep good records.” 

“My name is John Wick,” says John. He touches a hand to his wedding ring. “I was married to Helen Quinn.” 

The concierge gives a sharp intake of breath, one that seems to seize up his entire body in an unnatural way. “You were married to Helen Quinn.” 

“I didn’t bring my marriage certificate with me, but yeah.” 

“Please have a drink at the bar. It will be on the house. Tell whomever serves you that Charon will take care of its payment on the general tab,” The concierge, Charon (presumably) gestures his hand towards the bar. “I will let the Manager know of your arrival.” 

 

John orders a glass of pinot noir at the bar and is poured a drink without question. For a weekday night, the place is reasonably busy and the clientele is varied. However, John’s wonderment at this is likely just a side effect of his working in a not very busy bookshop. The traffic of this place during weekends must be insane. 

“Mr. Quinn?” says a voice behind him. John whirls around to face a man who is dressed to the nines. Including a cravat and newly shined shoes. This is a guy who knows how to get what he wants to, but unlike Santino D’Antonio, he’s been around the block a few times. Doesn’t have to show off as much. 

“Wick,” John says.

“I know,” the man nods with a little smile. “I would have called you Mr. Helen to drive home the joke. But I suspect that might not have ingratiated me to you. May I?” 

Most of the time, John does _feel_ like Mr. Helen, but that is neither here nor there and certainly none of Winston’s business. John nods back and the man takes a seat. He doesn’t appear to have ordered anything from the bar, but then someone appears with a tumbler with some sort of whiskey on the rocks. 

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me. Would you like anything else?” 

“No, I don’t really drink.” 

“Helen didn’t either,” the man muses out loud. No coffee, no alcohol. Sometimes I wonder how she’d ever had any fun.” 

That’s probably meant to be a dig, but John doesn’t take it as one. He is eager to get to the point.

“Are you the Manager of this place?” 

“I am,” the man says. “My name is Winston. Does that sound familiar to you?” 

John has to dredge his memory again. Helen’s not really hidden anything from him. He’d been telling Santino the truth. But on the flip side, it means Helen has told him a lot of things, and John can’t always remember what’s what. Grief does a fucking number on your brain chemistry and makes you forget. Not John really thinks he’s grieving. He’s just...

He wants to be left alone.

“She might have mentioned you, not in great detail,” John hedges. “Tell me about this.” He plants the box with the Marker still in it onto the table and Winston stiffens. 

“Put that away.” 

“Why?” 

“Just do as I say,” Winston says, nearly but not quite snappish and John obeys. 

“Finish your drink, and ask Charon to give you today’s code to my lift.” Winston downs his drink in what seems like a sudden hurry, and leaves John alone again at the table. 

 

Charon is not exactly forthcoming about the code to Winston’s private elevator but then John kind of sort of threatens to pull out the box again and Charon is quick to give it up. Given how John's day has been going, he is surprised that worked. 

He is also surprised that the elevator is average, and doesn’t try to kill him on the way up. 

The door opens to a hallway, and at the end of that hallway, which seems to stretch on forever, is a single door without a number affixed to it. John goes to it and knocks. 

Winston answers, and gestures him inside.

“I apologize for my abruptness downstairs,” Winston says. “But it was to keep from violating one of our rules. I can’t very well enforce the way we do things here if I’m seen as a hypocrite.” 

John is not so slow on the uptake, so he finds it a bit funny that Winston is concerned with being a _hypocrite_ when he manages a hotel catering to...what was it that they did here? John puts a pin in that and decides to go with “all sorts of things that are fucking illegal.” But he doesn’t say that out loud. 

“But hypocrisy is fine when no one sees?” 

“Exactly. Then who’s to know? You catch on quick,” Winston smiles. “I can see why she likes you.” 

“Liked,” John says. “Helen’s dead.” 

Winston’s expression turns, but instead of Santino’s show of selfish disappointment, there is something unexpectedly human and sad in the man’s gaze. Something almost like pity, which John finds hard to swallow. He looks away. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Winston says. 

“You mean you didn’t know?” 

“That almost flatters me,” Winston waves for John to follow him someplace and John does, through the sitting room and out onto the balcony. From where he stands, John has to admit it is a stunning view, and he imagines too, that Helen might have stood here and admired the bright lights peppering the streets below. 

WInston glances at him, “I’m not omniscient, John. And I have a modicum of politeness in my blood that hasn’t been yet taken by you Yanks. Your wife wanted to retire and I respected that. Even though I thought her way of getting out was, pardon my French, _fucking stupid_.” 

John says, “You know, I’m not really a Yank. Apparently, my grandparents came through and their name got misspelled.” 

He has no idea why he is telling Winston this; It’s always a thing that has kept John grounded. He knows he’s not from here, and therefore he has always had somewhere else to be. He just has to figure out where.

“Misspelled?” 

“My family name was Wojewódzki,” John tells him. It’s been a long time since he has had cause to say the name, but it still comes naturally. 

Winston cocks a brow at him. John can’t figure out if the man is thinking about saying something rude, defying the politeness in his blood. What Winston does finally say is, “I’m glad it got misspelled. John Wick is much...snappier. Does that mean you speak Polish? Russian?” 

“My Russian is better than my Polish,” John shrugs. “But I can get by in both, enough to take care of myself.” 

“Did Helen know that?” 

“We’re married; were married,” John says. However, his nuptials and the aspects of his marital life seem to be inadequate attempts at armoring at himself because Winston is looking at him strangely again. There is a lot in that look, and every bit of it feels oppressive.

For a bit of distraction, John looks at Winston’s fingers, he’s only wearing a signet ring of some sort but that’s it. John’s not surprised, “There wasn’t anything I didn’t know about her. Except that she was sick. She told me that much later.” 

“And the Marker? When did she tell you about that?” Winston presses. 

“Before we got married,” John says. “‘There’s a price on my head. Like a ticking bomb. Do you mind?’”

“And did you?” 

“I thought it was very romantic,” John tells the truth. He hadn’t meant to. But maybe Winston doesn’t believe him and he can still have his secrets. 

“You don’t strike me as the romantic type,” Winston opines.

“I’d hope not,” John looks at him in turn, “...We’re not married, Winston.” 

“No, we’re not,” Winston shrugs. “My loss, I suppose.” He peers at John up and down again, “Tell me.” 

“Yes?” 

“Have you ever been measured for a suit?” 

“Not since my wedding,” John admits, looking down at himself. “Years ago. I can’t tell if I’ve gotten fat or skinny.” 

“Well then, it would be my honor to treat you,” Winston disappears into the penthouse proper again and returns with a business card. The stock is nice and John feels the smooth texture between his thumb and forefinger. He reads the front of the card, _C. R. Bernini, Tailoring Ldt_ and then an address. 

“If you’re in a giving mood,” John says.

“I am.”

“I’d like to see my dogs,” John says. “And to know that they’re safe. Santino D’Antonio knows where I live and I don’t trust him.” 

“As well you shouldn’t,” Winston nods. “You’re more cynical than she was. I didn’t think that was possible. Give me your address, and I will see to it that the dogs are unharmed.” 

Winston hands him over a diary open to a blank page. John would have liked to spend more time with the quality of the paper and puzzle it out, but he gets the feeling that Winston isn’t the most patient of men and his kindness has an expiration date. Especially since John seems to have nothing to offer him in turn except the mild kind of entertainment Winston could have probably gotten from a lot of places or people. John writes down his address and hands the man back his planner. 

Winston tucks the diary away, and then he appears to have remembered something, “ -- Did you really try to shoot Santino?” 

“I grazed him,” says John. “I didn’t have to miss. I just didn’t want to shoot up my place of business.” But that too, is kind of moot. 

“I’m sorry to hear about the bookstore, John. I don’t have time to read much nowadays, but that was uncouth.” Winston touches him on the shoulder and the touch ends before John can discern from it any sort of intention. 

“Go downstairs and ask for a room, John. You look like you could use some sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Wojewódzki" is a Polish surname derived from the word for "warlord." Somehow appropriate?


	3. Find the Nearest Sharp Object

John doesn’t sleep well. It’s hard to sleep when some Italian goon is after you to commit murder.

At least, John assumes it must be murder, given the fact that Helen had spent twelve years of her life as a contract killer. That was the term she preferred. Contract killer. She’d worked to contract and then gold or money would appeared according to preexisting conditions. Everything else was inaccurate and made her feel guilty. John doesn’t think that these people have the imagination to ask for anything else.

Which is kind of a shame, because all things considered, John has always wanted to plan a heist and rob a bank like in the movies.

He puts his nose to the pillow next to his and takes in the fresh scent of something floral.

Helen wore a lot of vanilla. John still hasn’t cleared out her perfumes, moisturizer, makeup from her side of the bathroom at home. He is aware that this is possibly unhealthy. Suddenly, it’s become such a tiny thing.

“I’m fucked,” John says to the ceiling. “I wish you were here.”

 

When John does manage to fall asleep and dream, he dreams that Helen is making him cereal. She insists that making cereal counts as cooking.

_”By the same token, you cook for the dogs. You know, when you open a can.”_

_”Sweetheart, you’re hardly being fair,” she says, and keenly again, John feels the brush of her knuckles at his shoulder. Something he has since to come realize as an act of kindness, because if she’d really wanted to, she probably could have punched him through the wall. “I cooked us that stir-fry yesterday. Followed a recipe and everything.”_

_John winces at the memory and wisely keeps his mouth shut. There is, however, no risk of a repeat of what had followed the stir-fry with his morning cereal. No chance. So he eats that and downs milk from the fridge. “We need more milk.”_

_”I’ll get some while I’m out later,” Helen says and reaches to kiss him near his jaw. “Have a good day.”_

And then John wakes up.

It’s always a disorienting feeling, as if the reality he is stuck in now isn’t quite right. He is still waiting to go back somewhere else. Somewhere with air. John gulps a mouthful of something that passes for oxygen then he realizes he’s going to be sick.

Now.

He gropes his way to the bathroom and heaves into the toilet, coming away with bile. Has he had dinner?

John doesn’t remember, but he is suddenly craving Chinese. He remembers that there’s a restaurant downstairs attached to the bar, but as it’s late in the middle of the night, John doubts it’s going to be open.

But then he decides he could use the walk anyway. John forgoes the elevator and walks down six flights of service stairs.

 

As it turns out, both the bar and the restaurant are still open and busier than before. John concludes that crime doesn’t exactly sleep, on top of this place being a hotel. He is shown to a table and handed a menu. There are no prices. He enquires after this and is told not to worry, it will go on his tab.

John thinks of Helen’s gold coins, “I don’t --”

“Please don’t worry, Mr. Wick,” the waiter says. “We’ve been told by Management.”

“Told by Management what?” John probes, the bile rising quickly in his throat like before.

“To provide you whatever you need,” the waiter says, his expression still blank and impassive. John looks for a sign, anything he can hang his hat on and doesn’t come up with much. But it is important too, is that he can’t seem to glean any trace of pity on the other man’s face and maybe that’s what’s important. John has had enough of people pitying him; he has had enough of the single mother down the street bringing him lasagne that frankly, isn’t very good.

He just wants to get on with things. Maybe getting rid of Helen’s debt, whatever it happens to be, is one way that John can let her go.

“Oh,” John says. “I’m sorry. I haven’t eaten. Or slept.” Not since yesterday, but that suddenly seems a long time ago, too.

Everything on this menu looks fancy. John thinks about how Helen would have (must have) loved this place. Maybe she even ate here often; at least, he hopes that she did. Despite John’s best efforts, Helen had been a terrible cook. The things she knew how to do with a knife were simply not appropriate in a kitchen.

“If you’re after anything in particular, the kitchen is happy to accommodate, Mr. Wick.”

John thinks for a moment, “Do you do Chinese?”

“We do a passable Cantonese fare,” the waiter has to think. “Members of the Hong Kong triad sometimes stay here. They’re as picky as anything. I’ll see what I can do.”

 

Long story short: John gets talked into ordering a beer and soon after that, “passable Cantonese fare” begins to arrive at his table. Although the kitchen and the wait staff or whoever else have obviously been told to provide John with whatever he needs, he is pretty sure he doesn’t need all this food. Unless Winston, off the back of their earlier conversation, has decided that John needs fattening up before being sent to the tailor’s for slaughter.

Actually, it has just occurred to John that he should have asked after his supposed suit, if that had been a metaphor for something. Perhaps for stuffing him in a body bag. The metaphor doesn’t work no matter how he turns it around in his head, but who knows about all this? Helen had instilled within him that this is a world with its own rules.

Namely, that coins talk, words mean little -- unless you have a gun. Oh, and always carry a gun. If that’s not an option, then always keep an eye out for the nearest sharp object and watch for an opportunity.

John has left his gun upstairs. He only regrets this a little. He does his due diligence and watches a man cut savagely into a rib-eye with a serrated edge.

While he fishes bits of boiled meat out of chilli oil with chopsticks, John ponders his predicament. It’d been heartening, to hear that Santino isn’t exactly a VIP around these parts, but at the same time, John can tell that he’s still got some sort of clout. It’s not just anyone who will walk around like Santino does under the dark shadows of Winston’s contempt.

“...John?”

At first, John doesn’t quite register that someone is calling his name. It’s a habit that he has developed out of necessity living in New York. If he had a reaction for every time someone said the name “John,” John would probably develop whiplash and never have time for anything else.

“John Wick?”

He looks towards the voice, finding that it belongs to a woman.

John realizes after a beat, that he even knows the woman. She’d been at the wedding, as Helen's only bridesmaid (but not her maid of honor) and it was her gun that had accidentally gone off during the reception. All in all, the gun wasn’t the worst thing to have happened that day. One of Mooney’s nephews had had a peanut allergy that took up people’s attention. Helen had insisted on a proper wedding, but she hadn’t been very good at planning that sort of thing and John hadn’t been, either.

“...Parkins, right?” He’s not entirely a hundred percent on her name, but that’s hardly anything.

“Perkins,” says Perkins. “Why are you eating here?”

“I’m hungry,” John shrugs. He is suddenly very aware that the man at the next table has left the fatty bits of his rib-eye but the knife has disappeared.

She sits in the seat across from him, “...Why are you eating _here_.” The statement is dragged out and stuffed with accusatory weight. “Like, I don’t know, instead of getting takeout or whatever?”

“I’m curious about what the Hong Kong triad deems as passable Cantonese fare.”

Perkins opens her mouth again, but then the waiter comes by and asks her if she’d like anything to drink.

“Whatever he’s having,” Perkins gestures at John’s beer bottle.

After the waiter wanders away again, Perkins puts her hands flat on the table, “Seriously. What the fuck?”

For the record, John still doesn’t know how he feels about Perkins. He doesn’t feel bad about that, particularly because from the myriad of stories Helen has told him, John doesn’t think Helen liked her either. But Helen had put up with the other woman just like she was another nearest sharp object. Convenient sometimes, and dependable if you know what you’re doing.

(John doesn’t know what he is doing.)

Finally, he sighs and takes a sip of beer, “Helen’s dead, all right?”

Perkins stops, “Did someone kill her?”

John finds that he can’t fault her logic, “...No. She was very sick, towards the end. I did the best I could.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re eating here.” Perkins doesn’t offer him condolences, which he finds refreshing.

John waves down the waiter again, “Will Management really give me whatever I want?”

The waiter looks between John, Perkins, and John’s wedding ring. He’s seen this before, judging by his expression, “Within reason, Mr. Wick.”

“Then I want you to pack all this up and send it up to my room,” John says. “Shame to let all that food go to waste.”

 

“You know the waiter thinks we’re going to fuck,” Perkins says to John in the elevator.

“I want him to think that,” John glances at her sideways. She’s nearly as tall as he is in her high-heeled boots. “Obfuscation.”

“What?”

“ -- I’m just being careful,” John says as the elevator comes up to his floor. “It was something the Manager said.”

“You’ve met Winston?” Perkins’s eyebrows shoot up. “You work fast. I guess it’s something you have in common.”

“With who?”

“Your wife, John. I’m sorry she’s dead.”

Oh, there it is. John shrugs, “Me too. Come on, my room’s this way.”

When John lets himself into his room, he sees that room service has beat him to it. There are fresh beers in an ice bucket. Perkins helps herself to one and cracks it with the blade of a knife. Like it’s something she does every day. She probably does.

“I take it back.”

John takes a beer too; he weighs it in his hand, and then puts it back into the bucket. He’s already drank plenty today, “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t think the waiter thinks we’re going to fuck,” Perkins says. “Beer is so not sexy. Champagne or bust.”

“Well, I don’t really drink,” John says. “And we’re not going to fuck.”

“Then why am I up here?”

John draws in a deep breath. He is beginning to think that this is a mistake, “No business on Continental grounds, apparently.” He takes out the Marker and tosses the box in Perkins’s direction. “But I guess if they think we’re fucking.”

Perkins swigs her beer and opens the box, “Why do you have something like this?”

“It was Helen’s,” John says. “I want you tell me how bad it can be. And that’s all I want to know. I don’t want your help or anything.”

Perkins turns the Marker over in her hands and something in John’s chest tightens, “It depends.”

“On what?”

“Who you got it from,” Perkins looks at him. “Who your wife was stupid enough to sell her life to. Because that’s what it is. I’d sooner kill myself than owe somebody a debt like that.”

“That bad huh,” John looks down at his hands. “Well, she got it from Santino D’Antonio.”

Perkins reaches for another beer and cracks it, “If she got it from Santino D’Antonio. You’re gonna need another beer. I don’t care if you don’t drink.”

 

Two beers later, Perkins stands in front of the full-length mirror next to the armoire trying to untuck her blouse according to John’s specifications. Not that she agrees with them.

“Can I ask you a question, John?”

John sits on the edge of his bed and stares forward, “Yeah.”

“Have you _ever_ had a sexual encounter that was a bad idea? Because this,” Perkins pulls meaningfully at her blouse, “...isn’t that. Nobody’s going to buy this as a hookup.”

“I guess I haven’t. I’ve always had sex with intention. Otherwise it feels pointless,” John says. He doesn’t even really have to think about it. “...I just miss her.” He can say that; it’s not like it’s a secret.

“I can tell,” Perkins lets her hair loose and fluffs out her blouse. On her way out, she grabs the last beer, “I’m taking this with me. Night, John.”

 

John wakes up tasting beer in his mouth and a small headache blooming at the back of his head. A sedate knocking draws his attention to the door. His watch informs him that it is barely seven o'clock. John is a morning person, but his mornings start at eight.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Charon, Mr. Wick.”

John rolls out of bed in his clothes and feels about eighteen, “...Morning.”

Charon stands impassively in the hallway looking like a dressed mannequin in a show window; he’s changed his tie, and maybe he’s wearing a different shirt too. It’s too early in the morning for anyone to be this well dressed, “The Manager usually enjoys his morning constitutional around this time. He requests that you join him. Unfortunately, we don’t allow dogs in the building.”

“Could I maybe,” John looks down at himself. “Have a minute?”

“By all means,” Charon gestures, and John follows his gaze to a worn navy suitcase that he recognizes as his own. He’s taken that suitcase on countless vacations with Helen. “This has some of your things.”

“I didn’t give you a key to my place,” John says. On the second thought, maybe he should have. After all, it’s ridiculous to ask somebody to take care of your dogs and not give them the means to do so.

“You didn’t,” Charon assents. “But it is the Continental’s tradition to provide and we are good at what we do. I will leave you alone now.”

 

John has the distinct feeling that he’ll never see his apartment -- or his normal life -- again. The contents of the suitcase say so as much, and he wonders if it’d been Winston who had personally picked through his things, curating exactly what he is allowed and not allowed to remember.

Underneath most of his nicer clothes (including matching socks), is a picture of John and Helen on a beach during terrible weather. It’s not a particularly flattering picture, and it's slightly out of focus.

John slides the photograph carefully out of its frame. On the back of the picture is Helen’s excitable scrawl. Following the date, she’d written:

_Today is the start of the rest of my life!_

John goes to shower. A scream wells up from his diaphragm but then gets stuck in his throat.

 

“I’ve always wanted a dog,” is how Winston greets him like they are some kind of friends instead of whatever the fuck they actually are. “Yours are extremely well behaved.”

For reasons that he no longer cares to recall or revisit, John and Helen had decided not to have children. But dogs, dogs had been fine and Helen had loved staying home with them. John holds out his hands as Daisy and Dog bound toward him. Dog doesn’t have a name; they’d argued over it for some weeks, and then just put a pin in it. The words _FIND A NAME FOR DOG_ had sat at the top of their whiteboard on the fridge for a good two months before it’d been replaced with _BECOME VEGETARIAN?_

“The secret is a firm hand,” John glances at Winston. “If they know you’re boss, then they’ll behave.”

“That’s rather sound advice for life,” Winston agrees. “I’ll remember that.”

“Do you need to?”

“I confess I don’t know if you mean to insult me.”

John retreats to a nearby bench and scoops Daisy up in his lap. Dog follows and sits near his ankle, settling his head on John’s left knee.

“I don’t think I did,” John says. “If I did, you’d know it. You’re already everyone’s boss. ‘Management will give you whatever you need.’ As if you want me to be afraid of you.”

“Are you?”

There are two possible answers and John takes a gamble, “Not yet.”

Winston sits down next to John on the bench but he leaves plenty of room, “And Santino D’Antonio? Are you afraid of him?”

“Probably,” John says. “He doesn’t know he’s mortal yet. How old is he, like twenty-five?”

“Twenty-six, I believe. His father threw him a birthday party not too long ago. Right here in New York.”

“You attended Santino’s _birthday party_ ,” John stares at him. “Why?”

“People have been trying to kill him ever since he turned twelve and inherited his family’s holdings in Rome. I find it entertaining. It’s a story to dine out on, if nothing else. But he isn’t dead.” Winston shrugs.

“Now I’m afraid of you,” John says, more or less telling the truth. “Why are you helping me?”

“I helped her too,” Winston tilts his head, making his gaze angled and almost sinister. “She was, admittedly, more gracious about it than you are. Let’s call it matrimonial parity.”

There’s a lot to parse out in that sentence and John tables it for later, “Has my gift run out with you?”

“Not yet,” Winston says.

“Then I want you help me do one last thing, and I will go do what Santino wants me to do.” John gets up abruptly from the bench, nearly startling Dog. But at John’s sharp whistle, Dog settles in again, at a close clip next to John’s ankles.


	4. Homo Sacer

“ -- John! Are you all right? Ethan phoned to tell us what happened to the bookstore,” Mrs. Mooney opens the door before John can even ring the bell. She immediately lopes him into a hug; Mrs. Mooney has always been a hugger in the way that her husband wasn’t. In fact, it’s probably safe to assume that Mrs. Ethel Mooney is everything her husband isn’t. She smells slightly of sick and fresh herbs. “What _happened_?” 

Winston is a silent, but an unmistakable weighty presence near John’s elbow, “...It’s. I’m not hurt, but It’s a bit complicated. Can I come in? I don’t have much time. I’ve got the dogs with me. I was wondering if they could stay --” 

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Mooney steps back, and seems, for the first time, to register Winston standing there next to John, “And this is…?” 

“He’s fine,” John says. “He’s helping me with something. His name is Winston.” 

“How do you do,” says Winston politely, like he’s some old-timey radio announcer. John takes in the man’s gaze around the house. It’s an exceedingly average house with used furniture and two bedrooms. One of which is used for storage; before, it’d been Mr. Mooney’s study. John has never been allowed in. 

(It is only later that John inherits Mooney’s writing desk. It’s still sat in the spare bedroom at home in his normal life and Helen often opined that it was the ugliest desk she’d ever seen.)

There isn’t anything remarkable about the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Mooney, except that someone is dying here. Winston seems like someone who is comfortable enough around the prospect of death, but at the same time, precisely because he is the boss, he doesn’t usually have the chance to feel death, to taste it so close in the life of an ordinary person.

“Hello,” Mrs. Mooney says shortly and then she doesn’t waste any time. Despite everything else, she’s a woman of utmost practicality, she has to be. Luxury hasn’t been part of her life for a very long time. 

“...If you’d like to see Roland, John, he’s through there. But if you could make it quick -- it’s not been a great start to the day. I had to tell him of course, about what happened.” 

“I know how that is,” John nods. “I’ll be quick.” 

 

Mrs. Mooney turns to wave them towards the kitchen. How clean it is, the crockery long untouched, makes John hurt a little. He remembers when she used to cook. If he dredges it up from his memory, John thinks he can just about remember how to make Bouillabaisse. She'd taught him, because it's healthy.

Daisy and Dog are not unfamiliar with the Mooneys’ house; in fact, it is Mrs. Mooney who looks after them most days since the dogs don’t go with John to work at the bookstore.

Depositing Daisy down in the kitchen, John turns to walk towards the Mooneys’ bedroom, only to look behind him and finds Winston still hanging back in the hallway. 

Winston isn’t afraid of death, John thinks, but he is afraid, like any other man, of old age and disuse. 

“Come on, he won’t bite.” 

Roland Mooney is a shell of a man; a machine helps him breathe but he’s more or less conscious, though his gaze is glassy and sharp at the same time. Winston makes it a few more steps into the bedroom proper, but slides his eyes away from the figure on the bed onto the floor, “I get the feeling he used to, once.” 

If John were less fucked, he might have enjoyed it more: this, the subtle picture of Winston, untouchable at the top of a criminal enterprise being knocked down a peg by the reality of an ordinary man dying. 

“Mr. Mooney taught me everything I knew,” John says, the bedroom is still dark and he opens the blinds.

“About books.” 

“About who’s boss,” John shrugs. “He’s not himself now; you should have known him before. He was a riot at my wedding.” 

_”Let me out. Let me_ out _!” What terrifies John really is not the cage. It’s being alone in the basement. It’s the idea of the cage sucking everything out of his lungs. Everything from tissue to air, “Please, please let me out.”_

_“Not until you learn, John. Do you even know why you’re in here? Well? Do you?”_

_“Because you’re angry with me, Mr. Mooney.”_

_“No, John, you’re not putting this on me. You’re in here because you don’t_ think _.” Mooney jabs a finger against his own temple and then again against the glass. John shuts his eyes. “What happens when you don’t think, John?”_

“It’s hard to imagine him as a riot,” Winston says. 

“...A stroke does that to a person, doesn’t it? Sucks the life right out of anyone,” John exhales. He moves to touch Mooney’s hand, and Mooney turns away from him, “...Anyway, I’m done. I’ll need to speak to Mrs. Mooney about the insurance. I’ll just be another minute.” 

 

As John starts up the car outside of the Mooneys’ house, he notes a black sedan also warming up its engine several houses down. He doesn’t remember the car following them here from Central Park, but its presence is not entirely surprising. 

“You used me,” Winston says. He even sounds a bit impressed.

“You were the nearest sharp object,” John shrugs. “And you knew I was using you. If a rocket launcher goes through that house, I’ll come after you, too.” 

Winston looks like he’s holding back a laugh, “...What are you doing now, trying to show me who’s boss?” 

“Just making it up as I go along,” John says, telling the truth. “Don’t worry, I’ll drive you back to the Continental.” 

The sedan is their silent shadow for several blocks, until they’ve turned onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. They are only fighting the dregs of morning traffic, but the next time he thinks to look, the sedan is no longer in the immediacy of John’s rearview mirror. 

 

“You’re ringing,” Winston gestures. They’re a block away from the Continental and John pulls over near the curb. 

John hands him the phone, “You answer.” 

“I can’t help but feel as if this is outside my remit as your hostage.” 

“You’re not my hostage. Answer the phone.” 

Winston stares at John’s phone for a long moment, as if resigning himself to something. Then he picks up the call and puts it on speaker, “...This is Winston speaking.” 

There is a long pause on the other end, “Winston. As in, the Manager of the Continental Winston.” 

“Yes.” 

There is another long pause. Then an annoyed exhale, “Listen. He _owes_ me this Marker. I don’t care how much you liked her.” Santino says, “And it’s against the rules if you interfere.” 

“I’m being blackmailed into this,” John offers dryly. “Pretty sure that’s against the rules, too. Do I need to remind you that you blew up my bookshop?” 

“Actually,” Winston says. “The Marker signifies that a debt can be collected in a number of ways. Santino is, unfortunately within his remit to compel you to help him.” 

The Marker is settling in, heavier and heavier in John’s gut, “Fine. I’ll help you. But you leave the house in Riverdale alone. You leave the Mooneys alone, and you leave Ethan alone.” 

Santino doesn’t say anything. 

In the next quick second, John makes what he thinks is an ordinary, stupid decision. It’s one far away from the deference of primordial rules he has no hope of understanding. So he flips the table; it’s all the same, you can get out of a fucking cage if you hide a spare key. You can get out of the cage. Playing a game you don’t like? Fucking change the rules. 

“I mean it. If you don’t give me that guarantee, Santino, I’m going to shoot the Manager in this car. I’ll make sure everyone knows why.” 

He clicks the gun and presses it against Winston’s jaw. Winston stays perfectly still. But far from a hunted animal, there’s something serene about his posture. It is abnormal and John if thinks too much about it, he might start to freak out and not follow through. So he doesn't think about it. But he thinks plenty about everything else.

“You can’t _shoot the Manager_ ,” Santino’s voice rises two octaves. “What the fuck, John, you crazy fucker.” 

“I can. And I will,” John points his chin towards Winston, “Tell him I will shoot you.” John has a feeling Santino’s watching them from somewhere nearby, but he can’t tell where from and a little emphasis never hurts. 

“I don’t think his safety’s on,” Winston says obligingly. “He might actually shoot me.” 

Santino lets out a noisy breath this time, “Don’t shoot the Manager, that’s fucking suicide.” 

“I married a woman knowing she was going to die; she had a bounty on her head and a bomb in her brain,” John says. “This is a small thing, compared to that. I’m counting to three. One. Two Thr --” 

“All right. All right. I promise,” Santino says thinly. “For fuck’s sake, put your gun away.” 

“I have done,” John notes that the barrel of his gun has left a mark near Winston’s jaw. “I’ll need another half hour to pack up my things and then I’m going to get measured for a suit. -- Do you know Bernini’s?” 

“The only tailor worth going to in this city? Of course I do.” 

“Meet me there in one hour,” John hangs up without hearing Santino’s reply. 

 

Winston follows John up to his room; they aren’t alone in the elevator going up but the woman who gets off at the third floor keeps to herself and doesn’t say anything. 

It’s only when they’re back in the room itself, that Winston asks, “...Were you really going to shoot me?” 

“If he didn’t give me his word,” John scoops up his dirty clothes from the bathroom and shoves them into a plastic bag. “Yes, probably, I would have.” 

There’s a thud from the other room; for a moment, John almost thinks that Winston has fainted. But it turns out that the other man just needed to sit down. 

“Shall I tell you the repercussions of what would have happened if you had?” Winston presses his fingers against his temple, as if he is suddenly in great pain. 

“I didn’t shoot you,” John says, as if Winston needs reminding. “But I understand if you no longer want to pay for my suit. What I did was a little unfair. But I needed to do it.” 

“I have already said that the suit is a gift; it would be impolite for me to rescind it,” Winston shrugs. “I suppose it will be another story for me to dine out on.” 

 

“You. Are one crazy motherfucker,” Santino says, when he accosts John right inside C. R. Bernini’s. He doesn’t exactly sound unhappy about it; it probably suits his purposes that John is slowly becoming unhinged, “Give me your gun.” 

John does. Santino opens it and lets the bullets clink onto the hardwood floor. Then Santino says, “Carrying anything else?” 

“Like what?” 

Santino rolls his eyes, “Search him.” 

John steels himself as a man steps into his space. The guy is a touch shorter than John, but he takes up more room and the light glints almost sinisterly against his bald head. Probably because he needs to, with someone like Santino as his boss. The guy even sounds bored, “ -- Arms out. Feet apart. Try anything funny and you’ll regret it.” 

“Were you there when I tried to shoot the Manager?” John asks. He doesn't ask this to be glib; he is genuinely curious. 

“Heard the whole thing over the phone.” the guy says, no nonsense. Clearly not a talker; that’s fine, John’s mostly the same. But it’s an awkward five minutes as the man feels him up around the band of his underwear and makes him take off his shoes and socks. 

In the end, John loses his keys and the pen in his jacket pocket. 

“Can I have my pen?” 

“You may not,” Santino says. He makes a show of pocketing it. “Is it important to you?” 

“Helen gave it to me on my birthday. Don’t lose it.” 

This seems to renew Santino’s interest in the pen. He takes it out, uncaps it, and dabs a bit of the runny blue ink on his knuckle. “That woman has got to be worth millions. And she gives you a pen? It even looks cheap. The ink runs.” 

“It was something I wanted,” John fixes him with a long stare, “...That’s more important.” 

The big guy steps back, “Don’t think he’s carrying anything else. Still need me?” 

Santino says, “Thought you weren’t allowed to leave me alone. Gianna’s orders or whatever the fuck.” 

“I don’t think you’re in any danger unless he wants to strangle you with a sock,” the guy returns and then looks at John, “Please don’t do that.” 

John flexes his toes against the cold wood floor, “I’ll only think about it.” 

 

“I want you to kill my father,” Santino says. He says this, like he's ordering off a menu. One murder, medium rare. 

John is behind a screen with one Cassandra Bernini. In her mid-sixties, her fingers are still ever nimble and she works a tape measure like a whip. The fact that two men are plotting murder in her shop seems to be a thing that happens often. He’d never thought of tailor-client confidentiality as a thing but maybe it is. Short of someone raising the Hindenburg to crash through the middle of the city, John doesn't think he can be surprised by anything. 

“Didn’t he throw you a birthday party recently?” 

“How do you know about that?” 

“Winston told me. He also said people have been after you since you were twelve,” John says. “Do you think he’s responsible?” 

“And Winston gave you that information freely, did he?” Santino makes an unkind noise in his throat. “...You know what the word around was, John? That Winston, that old cow really had a thing for your wi --” 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” John inhales a breath and holds it. “For your own safety.” 

On the other side of the curtain, Santino’s quiet again, “...John. You’ve done something inexplicably stupid. You owe the Manager who knows what. You’ve threatened his life. If he decides to cash in on that, no one can help you. Not my connections, not the Russians, not the Triad. Nobody.” 

“You worried about me, now?” 

“I need you,” Santino says, simply and without pretense. “In case you haven’t noticed.” 

 

John is only a few months shy of forty, but in the past year or so, he’s woken up and felt eighty. His new suit, a rush job, constricts around all of his limbs, playing into such a reality. But it's a gift, so it's not as if John can complain. They leave Bernini’s and Santino returns his pen but not his keys or his gun. Still, it’s better than nothing. 

“Are you hungry?” 

John tastes the remnants of chili oil and beer clinging to the roof of his mouth and realizes that he’s forgotten to brush his teeth, “I could eat.” 

“How do you feel about pizza?” 

“You’re Italian, right? Why are you in New York for pizza?” 

“The pizza is incidental,” Santino says. “My old man’s here in New York receiving some treatment.” 

“Is he sick?” 

Santino thinks, and then runs a hand through his hair, “He’s due a kidney transplant. Figured it was safer to do it here. Better equipment. Less people wanting to take away his kidney, less -- everything else, too. Can’t blame him for that.”

John feels that he is missing something, “You have means; why not just take away his kidney?” 

“I want him to know it was me. The gesture of the thing, you know?” Santino shrugs. “With bureaucracy, especially bullshit American bureaucracy, that’s not always possible. With the Marker, there can be no mistake. Chain of custody and what have you.” 

“I,” John says. “I’m morally opposed to shooting a sick man.” 

Santino laughs, and then he stops laughing, “What? You’re fucking kidding me, right?” 

“I’m not kidding, no.” John says. He thinks to explain why, even though he understands his apprehension as obvious. 

But then a bullet shoots past him and hits Santino squarely in the gut. Helen’s gun, still tucked away inside Santino’s jacket, is sticky with fresh blood. 

Without thinking of much except for his own life, John uncocks the safety and fires. Nothing. Another shot from somewhere else. Different gun; it’d sounded different, anyway, perhaps a revolver. Somebody screams, someone else yelps, there are a few curses (possibly in Italian, John isn’t a hundred percent) -- and then a car careening away from the chaos.

John takes fresh aim, pulls the trigger, but then he remembers. There are no bullets in the gun. For fuck’s sake. He nearly hurls it at the fleeing vehicle, with a mind towards shattering its windshield. 

But then he remembers too, that the gun was Helen’s and John tightens his grip.


	5. Love

“ -- Hey,” John presses his hand into the wound and Santino sputters out a curse. “Hey, don’t go to sleep. Stay with me.” 

Santino is wheezing in shallow, short bursts of breath and his dark eyes have glassed over, “It’s just another Thursday. Jesus Christ it hurts.” 

“Today is actually Tuesday,” John is aware of a crowd squeezing into his peripheral vision, which can’t be good. Somebody’s asking if Santino needs an ambulance and someone else is shouting, “Hello? 9-1-1? There’s just been a shooting off the corner of Amsterdam and --” 

“No ambulances, no cops,” Santino manages. “John, you have to help me. We have to get out of here before...” 

“I --” 

“I need this,” Santino grabs at his elbow. “John.” 

“Stop talking,” John says. He manages to heave Santino upright and Santino makes a sound. “Stand up. You’re gonna have to walk. My car’s not that far away.” 

“I might faint,” Santino mumbles. 

“If you faint, I am leaving you here. Walk.” 

“Hey, hey you can’t move him,” someone touches John’s arm. “He’s gonna bleed to death. Wait for the ambulance. It’s not going to be long.” 

“He doesn’t,” John thinks. “Have insurance. I’m not paying his damn hospital bill. Let us through.” 

 

They end up at the Continental again, and John is suddenly very sorry that he’d tried to shoot Winston in the jaw. He feels very keenly that he’s made a mistake. He’d known it was a mistake when he’d shoved the gun in Winston’s face, but it’s just his luck that such a thing has come back to bite him in the ass when no time has passed. 

“...Hi again,” John says, forcing himself to look the Manager in the eye. It’s probably a bad thing that Winston does not look amused or surprised to see them, “I can explain. Actually, I can’t. Is there a doctor around?”

“There is, but it’s,” Winston pauses, “Not for you. There are rules.” 

“I’m not hurt,” John says. “All this blood. It’s not mine. It’s his. He’s part of, whatever this is. Let him see a doctor.” 

Winston looks down at Santino, clinging on to dear life at John’s side, “Do you remember what happened the last time we met face-to-face, _Signor_ D’Antonio?” 

“I’m,” By now, Santino is shaky and paper-white. “Sorry. _Spiacente_.” 

“Good enough, as long as you remember.” John has the gut feeling that Winston is just paying them lip service and it isn’t good enough. 

But it’s not like they have a choice. 

 

The doctor is a Dr. Kim, who apparently used to perform illegal abortions; it hadn’t been very interesting work and he doesn’t believe in administering anesthesia during medical procedures because he likes patients to know what they're getting themselves into. The other day he’d had to amputate someone’s leg after he’d been shot in the calf by a toxic dart. 

Kim tells John this and John doesn’t blink. John has to admit that he’s never seen anyone perform an abortion, but he’s seen other things, things that are up there. 

After a briefly confused quiet, Kim moves on back to more practical things, “Anyway, he’s lost a lot of blood, your friend. I’d feel better if we could give him a blood transfusion. What’s your blood-type, Mr. Wick?” 

“...O-negative,” John says. “But I don’t want to give him blood.” 

 

_It’s three o’clock in the morning when John hears a faint knock at the door. He weighs the sound against the time of night and decides that the knock, though incessant, is too polite to belong to some random crackhead who has just broken into his building. It happens from time to time._

_He rolls out of bed and goes to the door, and John isn’t sure what he’s expecting -- but not that. Not her._

_John doesn’t know much about her, except the fact that her name is Helen and that she is only intermittently in New York for work. Still, it’s been several months and sometimes she comes into Mooney’s, looking for books in their original Italian. So far, John has sourced for her Italo Calvino’s _If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler_ , which Helen has admitted to not finishing because as it turns out that she doesn’t have much time to read. All in all, it’s a little ironic._

_Sometimes, John makes her coffee, decaf, and worries about whether or not he comes off normal. Ethan has egged John on a few times about leaving his perennial coffee date for greener pastures but so far it hasn’t happened._

_\-- And now this._

_“...Sorry to bother you at like, three o’clock in the morning.”_

_“Why are you bleeding?” There is a recently fresh gash along her shoulder and when John glances down and towards the direction of the elevator, there’s a trail of blood._

_“Do you really want to know?”_

_“Not now, but later probably, yes. -- Did you bleed all the way here?”_

_“Pretty much. You don’t have to let me in.”_

_“Way to shoot yourself in the foot,” John says, and opens the door a bit wider, “Come on. I’ll fetch a mop for outside. Don’t die on me.”_

 

Kim regards John carefully, looking between him and Santino “Well, I doubt anyone else here would want to give him blood. He’s not exactly popular. Do you drink?” 

“I am thinking about becoming an alcoholic,” John says, telling the truth. 

“Smoke? Any diseases.” 

“I used to smoke marijuana,” John says, and wonders to himself why a sensible lie isn’t coming to the forefront of his brain. He’s usually better about this. Maybe he’s in shock, the way he hasn’t been in a long time. “I’ve quit. No diseases that I know of.” 

Just then, the door bursts open without preamble and John spots the bald guy from before and a woman. There is something dangerous about her, but he can’t put his finger on it. The woman stalks over to Santino’s bedside wasting no time, “ -- Word on the street is that some mouthy Italian got himself shot and didn’t have insurance. How many times do I have to tell you to be fucking _careful_?” 

Santino tries to laugh, but doesn’t quite manage, “Hello to you too, Gianna. It’s. I’m.” 

Gianna waves away Santino’s fumblings; John gets the feeling that this happens a lot. But then, she turns her gaze on him, and the gaze is almost too much for him to take, “...Who are you?” 

“John Wick,” John says and adds, “I was married to Helen Quinn after she retired. She apparently had your brother do her a favor.” The brother thing is a stab in the dark, but there are not that many other possibilities. She looks too young to be his mother.

“...Ah, yes, we told Helen to recruit you, but she went off script and married you instead.” Gianna looks at him with renewed interest, “Some man you must be, John Wick.” 

“I didn’t know that,” John says. Now he’s in another kind of shock, the kind that prickles uncomfortably at the underside of his veins trying to make its presence invisible, but at the same time, it’s become impossible to ignore. 

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Gianna says. 

“The surety of that statement makes John too, want to flee back to more practical, understandable measures, “...Kim says Santino needs a blood transfusion. Maybe you can help?” 

“We don’t share a blood type,” Gianna shakes her head. “We’re less related than you think. Tell you what, what’s it going to take? I’ll pay you. Money’s no object.” 

 

Kim sets John up in another room and Gianna orders a cappuccino from room service. John asks for an orange juice and she gets him that, too. He can’t help but feel like he’s sold himself out, but it’s not as if they’ve drained him dry and the money really doesn’t hurt. 

Besides, John thinks he’s learned something else. As he holds still and watches his blood, his very expensive O-negative blood, drip into the bag, he holds on to the knowledge that Gianna D’Antonio doesn’t want her brother to die. 

“We don’t share a mother,” Gianna says. “Mine’s hiding in Sicily, somewhere. And Santino’s is dead.” 

“...Sorry.” That’s probably not the right answer, but it’s polite. 

“Don’t be,” Gianna looks at the top of her cappuccino with some disdain, “...I can assure you he isn’t. How much do you know?”

“Apparently, not much.” John says, and stands the full oppression of her gaze for a full five minutes. Better than the last time, “ -- Okay, he wants me to kill his old man. I’m assuming you guys shared that. Some Godfather’s sperm. That was a good book.” 

“Papa’s favorite,” Gianna smiles. “There’s still a signed copy in the house in Naples. It gets pride of place. But I haven’t read it.” 

“Who are you people?” 

“We’re the part of the Camorra; think of it as --" she has to think for a minute, "A more complete version of the Five Families. No rough edges, except what's necessary. The D’Antonios have always stood head and shoulders above all of the other Families. But now our father’s fallen sick and we look weak. Privately, I will admit that what my brother is trying to do is not entirely stupid,” Gianna glances at him. “Even if…” 

“If?” John prompts.

“If never mind,” Gianna’s mouth presses into a thin straight line against the rim of her coffee mug, “And of course, Papa has other bastards. At least three of them. Just lying in wait.” 

 

John’s blood seems to have done wonders for Santino’s energy and well-being and John only regrets this a little. 

As soon as John steps into the room with Gianna again, Santino turns on him, “ -- Why didn’t you go after them? Chase them down? Do something.” 

“I’m one guy with a gun plus no bullets,” John reminds him, a bit put out, “Can’t very well be in two places at once.” The place where Kim had stuck the needle in him itched and he scratches idly at his arm. 

Santino glances down at the gauze still pressed to John’s vein, “You gave me blood?”

“ I was coerced,” John shrugs. 

“You were paid,” Gianna gives him a sharp look. “We’ve agreed to reimburse him for the shop. All the things that insurance wouldn’t cover. Including therapy sessions for his assistant manager until further notice.” 

“Why’d you do that?” 

“Because you shouldn’t have burnt down a civilian’s place of business. People talk. We’d had to send the appropriate fixers out to the press and suppress the news outlets no doubt sniffing around even if the police aren’t a problem. New York’s a big place, you never do anything by halves, do you?” 

Santino grouses, “You’re talking like I wanted to get shot. I didn’t want to get shot. I don’t even want to be here.”

“Here?” His sister blinks.

“The Continental,” Santino gestures. Then he jabs a finger in John’s direction, “Do you know what this crazy fucker did this morning? He tried to _shoot the Manager_.” 

“...You tried to shoot the Manager? Why?” Gianna looks surprised. John imagines she that looks surprised at very little. 

“We talked it out,” John says. “But I don’t want to be here either. Can I go?” 

“You may not,” Santino says. “You’ve not fulfilled the Marker.” 

“I told you I’m morally opposed.”

“Morally opposed,” Gianna’s mouth twists. “To what?” 

“Bringing harm to someone when they are already ill,” John says. 

“And yet you tried to shoot the Manager at point blank range.” 

“That was different,” John says, and it _is_. No doubt D’Antonio has done terrible things as head or whatever of the Camorra. Or if not the head, certainly a big gun. He adds, for the purposes of illustration, “...If Winston had been a coma, I wouldn’t have shot him. Wouldn’t have needed to, either.” 

John can hear Santino grinding his teeth. “Semantics.” 

“Truth,” John stares him down evenly. 

“Would you shoot Mooney if he was alive and well? Up and walking around?” 

For a long time, John doesn’t speak. “...You know Mooney had a stroke. But you didn’t know Helen was dead.” 

“I,” Something things to be bubbling inside Santino. When he speaks again, something is different about his voice. He sounds younger, more unsure, like a living person finally talking instead of some cheap imitation of a gangster knowing what he can get away with, “...Of course we checked out who she shacked up with. She had a _good_ life, doing what she did. And then you just turned up and --” 

 

_”So. I’m going to tell you a funny thing. I kill people for a living,” Helen mumbles into the crook of his arm and John is running out of clean rags. Finally he strips off his t-shirt and wrapped it around the wound the best he could. “Do you want to call the police?”_

_“Is this a bullet wound?”_

_“Used to be. I dug it out,” Helen looks at him, “Should be fine. Or not exactly, but you know what I mean. Now it’s just a knife wound. I’ve survived worse.”_

_“I killed people too,” John turns away from her, “Marines.”_

_“...It’s not the same,” Helen says. She touches his back and smears blood over John’s tattoos. Like they’ve just been freshly inked._

_“No. State sanctioned murder, that's what I did. The people who I killed didn’t have faces. But we don’t have to talk about this now, Helen.”_

“Maybe we’ll give you the room,” Gianna says, very softly. She touches John’s arm and three seconds of dark meaning shoots through John’s veins. “Cassian, come.” 

Cassian -- must be the bald guy -- nods at John on his way out of the room. Like a dog, like he knows who’s boss. Good boy. 

 

Kim has left Santino some pills by the bed for the pain he must be in. But he refuses to take them. Must be some sort of machismo thing. Or maybe not, do Italians have machismo? John’s got no idea. 

“‘Honestly, you don’t need to show off in front of me,” John says. “Take the pills, all right? You don’t need to impress me.” 

“She always made fun of me for needing them,” Santino laughs airlessly, “‘People will try to kill you all your life, Santino. You can’t take a little pain?’” 

John’s blood suddenly goes very cold, “Gianna said that?” 

Santino’s mouth twists like a knife; knowing and precise, aiming for the nicked vein and splitting it right open, “No, John. Your precious Helen, the woman who used to be my _consigliere_ , said that.” 

“She was your _consigliere_.” He stumbles over the word, too many syllables all at once. John’s Italian isn’t the best, but Helen’s Polish had been even worse. “So she was, I don't know, like your Tom Hagen.” 

“You’ve read _The Godfather_.” 

“Heard it was your old man’s favorite book.” 

“He thought it was a great parody of the business. _La Grande Parodia_. No man has any business loving that much. That brought down Vito, Michael too. But hey, Americans are suckers for that sort of thing, aren’t they?” 

“Who are you to my wife?” Now John thinks about it, he wonders why he has never bothered with the question. If the Marker carried such weight, then it would only have represented something equally terrible or intimate or both. 

It is not because John already knows the answer. Definitely not. 

“I loved her,” Santino says and John doesn’t get the sense he is lying. “I wanted to make her an honest woman. But she thought I was a boy. Because I couldn’t take pain. Because I drank too much. Because I was a terrible flirt. It was always something. And then she met you. And now, she’s dead.” 

“You don’t get to blame her death on me,” John says, feeling heat rise in his voice. “That kind of sickness. She had that in her head long before.” 

“I would have gotten her doctors. The _best_ \--” 

“She was worth millions; you said that yourself. Don’t you think we tried? We tried fucking everything. Everything, okay? Helen wasn’t a woman who’d just gave up on life!” 

“John,” Santino says. “I --”

“Fuck you.” John spits out the word. His hands ball into fists and decides to go for it anyway. Fuck no business inside the Continental. 

Besides, this isn’t business, it’s fucking personal. John’s punch connects and Santino stays very still. It looks like he can take pain, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _If on a Winter's Night a Traveler_ is a novel by Italo Calvino about you (the reader) trying to read a book called _If on a Winter's Night a Traveler_. So meta! 
> 
> Kim's backstory refers to the weird Korean abortionist that shows up in the movie _Brawl in Cell Block 99_ starring the ever insane Vince Vaughn trying to save his wife by committing a murder in prison. If this inspires fic, I will not be unhappy. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Nearly Average Schmuck

_”Can we talk?” says the hitwoman on John’s couch. In a certain light, she almost looks normal. Like she’s just had a bad day. Even normal people get mugged, shanked, or shot sometimes. New York is good like that, a city of equal opportunity. Just wait your turn._

_John stands in front of his stove. After thinking a moment, he goes to the fridge to fetch a few eggs. He cracks them on the side of the pan and watches the edges of the whites brown, “How do you want your eggs?”_

_“However you’re having yours,” Helen says. “I’d rather talk.”_

_“We are talking.”_

_He feels her very keenly, staring daggers into his back, “You know what I mean, John.”_

_“You were bleeding and saying a lot of things. I’ve forgotten most of it. How are you feeling?”_

_“I told you I killed people for a living. Contract killing. You told me you murdered people in the Marines for king and country. But that’s not the same. You were protecting something. Wars happen, and we need people like you. Me? On the other hand.” She doesn’t finish her sentence._

_John puts two eggs on top of toast. “ -- The fuck was I protecting? The world is still at war. Here you go.”_

_For a long moment, Helen is quiet and still. Then she reaches forward for the plate of toast, strange effort straining at her limbs, “...John. You should be terrified of what I just told you. Most people would be.”_

_“I’m not most people,” John tells her. “I think for myself. If I don’t use my head I’m not anybody.”_

 

Charon regards John and his still bloodied clothes, “I’m afraid I am not at liberty to give you today’s code to the Manager’s private elevator at this moment, Mr. Wick.” 

“I need to see him.” John says.

“You should have thought about that before you threatened his life,” Charon says. “My responsibilities are to uphold the sanctity of the Continental. I have no personal responsibility towards you as a guest. Nor would I wish to bear that sort of responsibility.” 

John decides that Charon’s insult is the politest he has ever heard, and the quiet menace loaded behind Charon’s words almost makes John think he deserves what is coming. 

Still, he’s got to try, “I’ve already apologized to the Manager personally, Charon. We understand each other.” 

“I don’t think you understand anything, Mr. Wick.” 

John seethes and simmers and wills the heat to leave the tip of his fingers. It would be stupid to lose his temper now, he knows that. 

“...John?” 

Winston’s voice. John whips around to realize that the Manager of the Continental isn’t alone. With him is another man of middling stature, but startling blue eyes. John is running out of ways to note how a man might appear dangerous. 

Though he doesn’t particularly want to, John dips his head. Be a picture of deference, _know better_ , “Hello, Winston. I was looking for you.” 

“Have you?” Winston regards him for a long moment, “Why are you still bloody?” 

“I haven’t exactly had the time to,” John sucks in a breath. “Look. I’m really sorry. But I need to speak to you.” 

“I suppose it won’t exactly hurt me to speak to you,” Winston pauses and turns to the man next to him. 

“Viggo. This is John Wick. Helen’s widower. You remember Helen. John, Viggo Tarasov.” 

“...The face that launched a thousand ships,” says Viggo not entirely kindly. Viggo, whose name makes John thinks of an actor in a movie he’s seen recently but anyway. “Certainly, I remember Helen.” 

“John has another name,” Winston says helpfully. “I won’t attempt it.” 

“Wojewódzki,” says John, and he doesn’t like giving that away, but he has to show Winston a sign of good faith.

“Interesting,” Viggo’s mouth does something funny. His English is hard and brittle like winter. “Do you play poker, John? We need a fourth for our game.” 

 

The poker game takes place in some basement. It’s all very seventies and any minute now, John is halfway expecting Al Pacino or somebody to stride in and offer them all a round of top-grade cocaine. 

“Of course, I wanted your wife to come work for me,” Viggo says as he deals. He’s like a snake, eyeing John for any sign of weakness. “But the D’Antonios won her over in the end; I felt the loss very -- severely. They’re young. Modern. And it’s warmer where they are. How about yourself? Do you like the beach?” 

“I’ve only been when it’s raining,” John admits. “I have terrible luck.” 

Viggo says, “The buy-in for this game is fifteen thousand. If you have terrible luck, no one would blame you.” 

They’re baiting him and John should really think this through; he should know better. But he take three coins out of his pocket, he thinks of Helen touching them and feels better, if marginally. “These were hers. Emergency fund. Will they do?” 

“I suppose they will do.” 

The fourth player at the table, who John later learns is one Julius Cassini, who manages the Continental in Rome, deals the second round. John is starting to get the feeling that this isn’t just about poker. 

“We understand you don’t want to fulfill the Marker, John,” Winston speaks first. 

“I’m morally opposed. It would be a different story if he were up and at it,” John confirms. “But I also understand that I must.” He glances at his cards. A pair of eights. “If I have to, I will. That’s the way I’ve always done things. But I wish.” 

“You wish,” three pairs of eyes swivel tellingly in his direction and John wishes he’s chosen a different word. A word that shows that he isn’t so soft inside. Here’s the thing, it’s a matter of verisimilitude. What John thinks he is, what he is, and how the world chooses to tell him he’s wrong.

“Signor Vicenzo D’Antonio is currently admitted at St. John’s Hospital. He won’t be easy to get to. Heavily guarded. Press milling around. It’s a task worth of a Marker.” Julius says, “That’s the thing about Santino. He aims big. He aims high. Like Icarus.” 

“If I’m honest, John, Mr. Wojewódzki,” the Polish sits awkwardly on his tongue but he manages it just about. John wonders what else it’s meant to say. That niggling feeling at the back of his head is from an odd place; that John “I’m surprised you got this far. Somebody more stupid might have blown Santino’s head off and perhaps…” 

“Made it easier for you?” John stares at him evenly. “Did one of you hit him?” 

“Winston and I couldn’t have,” Julius says. “There are rules.” Of course there are. 

Viggo doesn’t say anything. He slides his fingers over his cards and then dithers over to his stack of chips. 

“Raise.” 

John looks down at his cards again, “Are you working with D’Antonio’s other children? I know Russian. And what they spoke before they drove away wasn’t that.” 

“Is that what Gianna put into your head?” 

“Nobody puts anything into my head,” John says. “Except maybe a bullet. But if that happens, maybe I deserve it.” 

Winston raises one eyebrow, “That is the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say in a very long time, John.” He too, pushes a stack of chips forward into the pot. “Call.” 

“I fold,” Julius says, but John gets a feeling he’s just biding his time. He waits a beat and does the same, “Fold. Why didn’t you shoot me, too? You could have.” 

“I could have,” Viggo says. “But it would be rude not to have made you an offer before. I’ve never liked the way the D’Antonios do things. There’s something to be said about tradition, how it used to hold water.” 

John feels like he would have been better prepared for these meetings and these people, if he’d gone to finishing school in Switzerland or some place where those things still existed, “I like tradition fine. It was basically my job.” He corrects himself, “It is my job, I mean.” 

Viggo smiles at him, it’s one of those indulgent icy smiles, “And what was your job?” 

“I manage a bookshop,” John’s mouth suddenly itches for some form of liquor. “Or, managed. But I have extracted from Gianna D’Antonio a promise to rebuild the shop. Once this is over.” 

“Oh, so you do have plans to live.” 

“I’m not betting on it,” John says. “But it would be nice. All right, what’s your offer?” 

“One life for another,” Viggo says. “I want you to find a way to dispose of both Santino and Gianna D’Antonio. By far the most obstinate of Vincenzo’s children. They’re both up and at it. Santino less so, but his wound is not serious.” 

“I count two,” John says. “Gianna. Santino. I don’t think I’ve had a stroke.” Might have been his imagination, but Winston makes a noise in his throat. 

“I cheated,” Viggo says simply, as if it is hardly worth mentioning. “But think of it as a contract. You’d be well compensated afterwards. You could earn your own coin. Rather than use hers. I have men, I have resources. You’d be saving us a lot of trouble. Or.”

“Or?”

“Or you could be normal, again. After this. But most people wouldn’t want to. There’s something about all this that makes it hard to leave. Once you get a taste for it.” 

John peeks at his cards again; admittedly, he has not been paying that much attention to the game, but he is aware too, that this is what they want. There are a lot of big dogs in this room trying to mark territory. 

He takes two of the blue chips and slides them forward, “Raise. Trouble is relative. Me saving you trouble means that I’ll be in trouble.” 

“You could look at it like that, yes,” Winston says. “But you could look at it as investment. And I would personally see that your debt is cleared in the New York Continental. It’s the way we do things here, John. If you want to survive --” 

“I’ve just said I don’t mind,” John says. “If I don’t. Maybe I’ll get to go where she is.” 

Julius says, “Check.” 

John’s two cards are the Jack and King of Spades. The cards in the crib are Ten of spades, King of hearts, Queen of spades, nine of spades, and finally, a ten of hearts. 

“All in,” John says. Everyone stares at him like he’s grown a second head. 

“All right, John, we’ll play.” Viggo says. “Call.” 

“I fold,” Winston says. He looks annoyed. Julius seems to be hanging in the balance but at least he shakes his head. 

“Me too.” 

“Check,” Viggo says, and he flips over his cards with a flourish. “Four of a kind, tens.” He flips over two tens, diamonds and cloves.

“Straight flush,” John says, showing his hand. The room is so still you could practically hear jaws dropping. Here is another thing: luck always found John when he needed it; it makes the bad luck much easier to live with, “Can I think about it?” 

 

_”Okay, let’s -- assume you’re serious for a second about being an assassin.” John glances at his watch. It’s just gone eight, which means he has to head out soon. “...Am I. Are they out to get me? If you’re here.”_

_“That’s the movies, darling,” Helen smiles at him like he’s a puppy who has just wet himself._

_“And a fair few books, too,” John says. “Average schmuck helps out a killer and then dies from his own bad decisions. Because he’s stupid. That stuff always makes a buck.” It’s not his genre, but they have a bargain bin outside and just reading the blurbs gives John a headache._

_“You don’t strike me as stupid, John.”_

_“So don’t lie to me,” John thinks about threatening her, but he is just on this side of being morally opposed about harming women. Also, he’s got the feeling that it wouldn’t work. Helen might have been bleeding all over his living room, but there is something about her. “If we’re going to do this. Then no secrets. I don’t want your money or whatever you’re probably going to offer me. I just want your honesty.”_

_“Men only speak like that when they’ve been hurt very badly,” Helen says. “If I have no secrets from you then you have no secrets from me. Who hurt you, John?” She says the word hurt, as if she’s tasting it. Like she’s set to drink in something exquisite drawn directly from the veins of John’s soul._

_Though really, it’s not much of a secret. John moves to turn off the stove, “I told you already, the world.”_

 

“You may think about it,” Viggo nods. He’s possibly too shocked and/or impressed to be outgunned at poker by a mere bookstore clerk to refuse. Either way, John isn’t going to dwell on it. “But I don’t think I need to impress upon you the urgency of the matter. It’s all about timing, you see. Vincenzo’s surgery is scheduled for the end of the week, four days from now. After he goes through with the operation, he will be flown back to Italy to recuperate. Then he will be once again, at the mercy of his children.” 

“I won’t touch Santino while he’s still recovering,” John says. “That’s my rule. Besides --” John glances at Winston, “Can’t do anything to him inside the Continental, anyway.” 

“That’s fair,” Viggo says. 

John decides to chance it, “Why do you want them dead?” 

“It’s a family matter,” Viggo shows teeth. “My son is married to Rosalita D’Antonio. With Gianna out of the way, I stand to make a lot of money. I can claim back what I am owed. Moreover, what is life you don’t covet, John? Keeps us all sharp.” 

John thinks, “Santino gave me six hours to think, and then he blew up my shop. Would really like a bit more notice second time around.” 

Viggo appears to mull this over, and by a dip of his head, it is clear that he’s found some sense in John’s request, “I will give you eight hours. I hope you won’t disappoint me, John, and choose to be a _mu’dak_ instead.” With that, Viggo holds out his hand, and John takes it. 

 

John exits the building. He thinks, very briefly about walking into oncoming traffic. Suddenly, it’s all very unfair. Only normal people think that the world is unfair, he can feel it, the normalcy seeping into his blood like excess carbon monoxide. 

He hears footsteps behind him, “John.” 

“Winston.” 

“Be honest with me.” John trades “did you have a thing for Helen” to, “...Was Santino in love with my wife?” Though the former had been tempting, the latter presented itself as the less suicidal option at the last minute. Since plenty of things are out to get him at the moment, John hasn’t any choice but to aim for optimal survival. 

This time, Winston purveys John with only a mild interest, “Why would you think I’d be privy to that sort of information?” 

“Your ears are open all the time, aren’t they? You must hear things. That is your gift.” 

“You no longer have a gift with me,” Winston smiles at him. “So from now on, everything I tell you has a price.” 

“It didn’t before?” 

“No, before you were skating by on Helen’s good virtues. But you’ve made choices that are so far from anything she would have done I am forced to consider you a separate entity. In modern parlance, maybe I consider you crazy.” 

“She was _my wife_ ,” John nearly snarls. “You don’t get to say that to me. What, you have a thing for her?” So much for being clever. John's temper tends to get the better of him.

Winston shrugs, but somehow the movement felt black and heavy, “I liked her as I did a sharp breath of fresh air in a city where you can only smell shit and smog,” The man doesn’t look at him. “I imagine it was something similar, for you.” 

“It really wasn’t.” 

“Then? What was it like?” 

 

_”Hit me.”_

_“You’re injured,” John says. It feels odd to say that sort of thing out loud, obvious and cheap. But it looks like Helen could use reminding. Maybe she isn’t really normal, after all._

_“And you’re a normal schmuck,” Helen smiles. "Say I like my chances."_

_“I am not that normal. Trust me.”_

_“Just normal enough, then. Come on, hit me.”_

_John swings, aiming at the last minute for her shoulder rather than her face and he feels his wrist twist very painfully from the bone. Then John’s on his back with her elbow inches away from his throat._

_Helen looms above him like some sort of dark-maned apparition, “Do you believe me now? You should have gone for my face. Most people have done and I’ve healed up fine.”_

_“Until you don’t,” John touches the side of her cheek. “I like your face.” As soon as he’d said it, John wishes he hadn’t._

_“You like my -- face,” A laugh bubbles out of her and then Helen is shaking against the line of John’s throat. “God, who even says stuff like that? Like it’s from a book.”_

_“Maybe that’s why I said it.” John tugs at her hair so they can look at each other again, “I really like your face as a nearly average schmuck. Do you mind?”_

_Helen bends to kiss him. Probably to get him to shut up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I taught myself poker so I could write this chapter. I don't think it worked...


	7. My Shit's Fucked Up

“That’s your price?” John thinks that there has got to be a trick. 

“I want another secret of yours,” Winston says, in that tone of voice that suggests to John that again, he’s the reasonable one between the two of them, trying to do John a favor. If only John would listen. “But we don’t have to gut you open here. We can go back to the Continental to have a drink, be like civil men. You could think about it on the way, what you would like to give me.” 

John gives the man a long look. He would dearly like to argue the finer points of Winston being also possibly not right in the head. But then he knows how that would go, Winston will probably just pull out some sort of amendment that states that only Managers are allowed to exercise unsound reason. Fuck everyone else. 

Again, John settles for, “You gave my name to Viggo. I don’t just _tell_ people that.” 

“Knowing your name probably saved your life. Viggo really is a traditionalist. Never mind I probably mangled it on my first go,” Winston shrugs. 

“So now you’re telling me that you saved my life,” John says.

“Viggo could have disposed of you when he had Santino shot.” Winston says, divulging this information as if it is not something John already knows. “Santino was never supposed to die from the bullet in his gut, but you. You were an outlier. It could have gone either way.” Winston smiles, “You really should be more grateful, John.” 

John grinds his teeth. “And what would you like for that? For saving my life?” 

“Now you’re learning,” Winston nods, “I’d be almost be willing to consider a two for one. Now, come along.” 

There’s something ironic about all this, Winston telling him to come along and John falling into step at his heel. He resolves not to think about it. 

 

John calls bullshit that there isn’t anything Winston doesn’t know, but he keeps that to himself. It’s not much of a secret, but John grips at it like protective lining along his stomach. If you know things are going to hell, you’re not allowed to act surprised. You don’t have any contingencies, but then that means you know you can make things up. 

Back at the Continental, John feels eyes on him and the niggling presence of Winston inside of his head, smirking. 

“And what would you like, Mr. Wick?” It’s not the same guy who served him before, but now everyone just looks unfriendly and ergo they all look the same. Winston is already being poured something into a tumbler without being asked by another bartender, a heavily tattooed redhead who gives John an almost apologetic look. John looks away. 

“Medium glass of house red, the pinot if you’ve got it,” John says, and he waits for the guy to spit into his glass. The guy doesn’t, under Winston’s watchful eye, and John can’t help but think that his debt is racking up by virtue of his just breathing on Continental grounds. 

Maybe they’ve got rules about that, too.

Once he has his drink in hand, John takes a sip, mostly to calm his nerves and borrow some more time. It’s the most minute detail, but he finds that he’s got the shakes. All of his fingers suddenly gone haywire, as if there are a thousand ants underneath his skin trying to bleed into his nerves and take it over. Like his body knows that it’s fucked, but John’s mind hasn’t caught up yet. “To answer your question, no. Helen wasn’t like fresh air. She was more --”

 

_”Where is this?”_

_“It’s the basement underneath Mooney’s, where I work. You’ve been upstairs. This cage here, is probably right underneath the office, where we’ve had coffee.”_

_Helen does a quick scout of the perimeter, her fingers no doubt dragging against the flat glass, trying to discern, John thinks, any weakness in its structure. She’s not locked in, but she’s already looking for a way out. He should be more worried that he’s volunteered to take her down here, but she’d asked for somewhere private. Private to blow his head off, probably, but it’s not happened yet._

_Finally, Helen knocks the glass. “You could probably lock someone up here, can’t you? Throw away the key and they’d starve to death. Or worse.”_

_After that, she opens the secured transaction tray and sticks her arm through. John almost expects to hear the cracking of bone when she closes it. But the slam is the only thing, dulled by soundproofed glass._

_“Soundproof?”_

_John closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath. “Yes. Mooney didn’t like to be disturbed while he was working down here.” There’s a glint in her eye now, one that makes most of the hairs on his arm stand up._

_“I see.”_

_“You sound very excited about this,” John has to take a moment to recall whether or not there is still a spare key hidden in here somewhere. “...But yeah. I guess. I’ve got the only set of keys.”_

_Helen shrugs, “I’m not excited, I’m just. Surprised that a normal guy would have a sex dungeon at his disposal.”_

_“I have never had sex in here.” John suddenly wonders why that is. Actually, he knows exactly why._

_“Well, we can change that. Later. But now,” Helen surveys the range of John’s instruments laid out on the worktop. He’d been between projects, so he hasn’t yet had the chance to put things away properly. John is suddenly all attention when she picks up one of the tools, with a fat wooden-steel handle and a hooked needle attached. Helen tries the point with her finger. “What’s this?”_

_“It’s a stitching awl,” John says. “You use it to puncture canvas. Make holes larger if you need to.”_

_“Fine. It will do.” She holds it out pointing the sharp end at him. “Take.”_

_“...To do what?”_

_“Try to hit me again. But with that. It will make us even. This thing looks like it can gauge out somebody’s eye.”_

_“Jesus, Helen,” John lets out a breath. “I don’t --”_

_“The world hurt you, John. The world fucked you so bad that all you wanted from a woman was the truth.” Helen says suddenly pressing very close to him. “I’ll give you something better. Something that will save your life.”_

_“Which is,” it’s a rare thing, when an attractive woman is this close to him and all John can think of is how she might take his eye out. It's been known to happen. “...What?”_

_She sticks the awl right against his clavicle. “The next time the world comes knocking, John, the next time anyone tries to fuck with your shit? You can tell it to go fuck itself. Now shut up and hit me.”_

 

“Not sure how to describe it,” John says around a mouthful of pinot noir. He tells himself that it is the truth, or at least, the truth that he can bear to give. “Honest. Maybe like being run over by a truck over and over and over. And then you got used the world being two dimensional.” 

“I’m. Not sure what to do with that.” Winston’s bemusement was real and almost misshapen. John gets the sense he is not often confused about anything, and if he can’t beat the man according to any conceivable measure, there’s always the bastion of John’s little strange life, growing stranger by the day. “...You sure that’s the best you can do?” 

John nods, “So. Your turn. Santino and my wife.” 

Winston presses, “Were you happy? Was she?” 

“You’re cheating. I’ve answered your question,” John exhales. “I mean. Yes. Yes I was. I like to think she was, too. She never tried to kill me in my sleep.” 

“Seems like a bit of a low bar,” Winston says, and that stings. John is pretty that’s meant to sting. He tries not to let it, but it does. More wine helps, but only a little. 

“Santino was enamoured with your wife. She loved him like a puppy. This is just a guess, of course.” 

John swallows more wine, finding that it suddenly tastes sour. Big surprise. “But marriage isn’t frowned upon here. Is it? Viggo’s married, presumably. D’Antonio too, I would guess?” Though maybe not, but given the number of illegitimate children he seems to have running around trying to kill him, maybe all of that was all the doing of a marriage falling apart. 

Winston's look turns again. It's a look long cultivated by the knowledge and surety that Winston knows everything and John nothing at all. “We don’t marry for love, John. We marry for life. Viggo’s wife gets him in with the Serbs. Through his son’s marriage he has a line to Italy. If Santino had made Helen an honest woman, you can be sure that nobody would have been happy about it. She hadn’t anything. She was just a lowly American Descended from sheep rustlers in the penal colony.” 

“Australia?” 

Winston shrugs, “I was trying to be subtle.” 

“She was from Brooklyn,” John says. 

“That was what she told you. And perhaps who she wanted to be,” Winston skims the top of his drink and then almost appears to lose interest; maybe it’s a bad year. “But we can’t escape who we are, John. No more than you can escape the warmongering blood inside of you.” 

“What,” John stares. “Are you talking about?” 

Then Winston’s phone rings and he says, “Excuse me.” and goes.

 

John sits stewing at his wine. He fails to see how today could get any worse. John nearly jumps when he realizes Cassian has come to his table holding a drink. A gin and tonic. Helen had liked the same. 

“May I?” 

John shrugs. Cassian sits and says, “I liked her. She was no nonsense, and good. Good for the family. Good for Santino. She made him grow up. But he did go a bit off the deep end after the Task. We expected him to, but not...that much. As much as he did.” 

John thinks about smashing his wineglass against Cassian’s shiny head. But holds. After all, Cassian is freely giving away this information without John having to lose an eye, an arm, or perhaps most importantly, his dignity. “...Task?” 

“Why do you think the Marker has her blood on it?” 

“You tell me. If I try to make something up, you just think that I’d watch too many movies.” 

Cassian watches him evenly like the calm top of a lake. “I don’t watch movies. Can’t concentrate.” 

“Jumpy?” John tries. He is only latently trying to be funny. 

“Alert,” Cassian says. “...Well?” 

“My guess is. There was this movie, about two people committing a murder. And that tied them together. And at the end, well. They both die. But they die the same person.” 

“Now I really have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Just tell me,” John says. “Don’t be a fucker.” 

“It’s more fun if you guess.” Cassian smirks, or tries to, over the top of his gin. John has the feeling the guy's mouth just wan't go that way. Stone cold. Despite himself, John always finds himself inclined to respect and like a man who retreats into irony. 

“Santino did something horrible for Helen. Probably a murder. And Helen gave him that. And now I have it and _fuck_.” 

John is surprised, along with everyone else in the bar, at the raw sound that tears out of his throat. He looks around for Winston but the man seems to have disappeared. Still, he has the distinct feeling, honed by recent near-apocalyptic events, that the Continental is Winston’s wheelhouse through and through and that this place has got eyes and ears everywhere. John glances down at his watch. 

“Come on, let’s go out and get some air,” Cassian says. 

 

Cassian offers to drive and John couldn’t figure out a way to refuse. He would have rather been alone, but he is a fast learner to know that no one will let him leave the Continental alone. If it isn’t Cassian, then it would have been somewhere else. Cassian’s already head and shoulders above everyone else around here. Mostly because he doesn’t want John dead. “Can we drop by NYU?” 

“The university? Why?” 

“I want to check up on my assistant manager.”

“But you’re still,” Cassian gives him a pointed look. “Bleeding?” 

“...Shit.” John stares down at himself. 

“Tell you what. Take my jacket, if you zip up you should be all right.” 

John is suddenly very conscious that he only has only seven hours to make a decision and that seven hours is slowly draining as they go through traffic. John is also aware, that Cassian is kind of being nice to him when he doesn’t have to be, and yes, the part of John that is still normal kind of feels bad that he is thinking about betraying the D’Antonios in less than a day’s time because he wants...

What the hell does John want, anyway? His life is so inundated with the immediacy of _now_ , or really, worrying about whether or not he’s going to be breathing five minutes from now. What he wants is really not anything at all. 

So maybe it’s better not to think about it. 

But finally they get to the building where Ethan is borrowing his supervisor’s office to hand back essays on John Milton. John stands outside in the hallway and waits. The girl he is with is blonde and Slavic looking. On her way out, she smiles at him. “Hello, Mr. Wojewódzki. Nice to see you.” 

“...Who?” Ethan says. “Hey, John. I thought you were away. Mrs. Mooney said you left the dogs at their place.” 

“I,” John’s head suddenly hurts. “Hi. I just. Wanted to see if you were. Okay. I am sort of. Away.” For a moment, he fantasizes about telling Ethan things. Ethan is a budding writer (and therefore certainly imaginative enough to believe the crazy shit has been happening to John for the last day or two). But he also knows that if he says anything, Ethan would probably just accuse him of reading too much outside of his genre. 

Besides, John has better things to worry about. He jerks his head around towards where the blonde has just disappeared around the corner. 

“Who is she?”

“Renata Tarasov, she’s bright. She’s taken two of my seminars. She even started a collection for the bookstore. Which I think is nice, you know?” Ethan tells him this, mostly with a straight face, but when John stares at him for longer than thirty seconds, Ethan goes a bit pink. 

“You sleep with her? Does she know where you live?” 

“What? John, I’m not telling you that!” 

“Okay.”

“Seriously man, what’s up with you? I don’t hear from you in a day, and you come in asking me questions like,” Ethan waves him into the office and gestures at the coffeemaker. “Sorry, want anything?” 

“No,” John shakes his head. He closes the door and stands against it. It won’t make any difference, and some part of John definitely knows that. “Forget all that for a moment, okay?” John has to think, “Ethan. Where do you most want to go?” 

“What?” 

“Where do you most want to go? France? Los Angeles? Stockholm? People your age like to travel, right? I traveled a lot when I was your age.” 

“I guess,” Ethan sinks down in a chair. “Copenhagen? But it’s like super expensive, and.” 

John’s head prickles. He supposes that the lack of funds is...a valid concern for most people. Once that thought forms in his head, he hates himself for it. It means that he’s changing. Thinking like _them_. “Listen. I can’t talk about it, but things are happening around here, all right? Pretty fucking terrible things. I’d feel better if you’d leave the continent.” He hopes that Ethan won't want to go to Italy.

“Can’t I just. Go to Jersey or something?” 

“It needs to be somewhere far away.” 

“Shouldn’t we call the cops?” Ethan’s eyes go very wide, “Also, I called the precinct to check up on the investigation and get this right. They said there was no investigation. That it basically didn’t happen even though it did. I mean, I just drove past it today! What the fuck is going -- what are you doing?” 

“Helen and I have a bank account. For emergencies,” John plucks a pen from the mug on the desk and scribbles something on the back of an old receipt. “Go here, and you can withdraw nine thousand. Go on vacation. You need it.” 

“John, you know this is crazy right? I have teaching, I have.” 

“Please go to Copenhagen,” John says. “I am not above begging.” He steps away from the door and sinks to his knees and Ethan’s face goes through several iterations of shock and settles into normal again. “Please get out of the country. Right now. Today. Don’t tell anyone.” 

“John.” 

“Please.” 

In the end, Ethan takes the receipt from John and promises to be careful when he goes to the bank. Nobody else is dying on his watch today. John feels better, he has not changed in a way that counts, in a way that he can’t come back from.

Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Louis Braille poked his own eye out with a stitching awl and then got an infection that took his other eye. Poor tyke. I learned that at a pub quiz...
> 
> (In addition, this chapter was originally 6k, this means that the next chapter shouldn't be too long! Thank you for your patience and for reading along.)


	8. Il Mostro di Napoli

Cassian looks John up and down once he gets back in the car again. It’s yet another variant of what John has come to know and recognize as the assassin’s stare. These people have a real way of staring right into a man’s bones, finding his weakest joints, and wearing them out until they break all on their own.

But John is not so normal himself. He knows that now. He wears it like armor, like the gold band around his finger that tells him that it’s. Something. Maybe it’s not going to be all right, but he is going to live through it. 

“What?” 

John gets into the car and buckles himself in. He watches as Ethan rushes out the building, the collar of his jacket askew and his bag, haphazardly slung over his shoulder is open too. Ethan walks fast, with a nervous energy that practically radiated to the whole block, “Hey! Look at me! I’m in a world of trouble.” 

So much for subtlety. 

“What, nothing,” Cassian says, following too, the trajectory of John’s gaze. “Guessing that’s your assistant manager.” 

“Yeah.” 

“He okay? You didn’t tell him about us?” 

“That’s what you’re worried about?” John says. “You’re not worried about this Marker business at all? How crazy it sounds.” 

John apparently looks agitated enough that Cassian reaches for something inside the glove box. A pack of smokes, halfway decent ones. 

“Have one.” 

“Don’t smoke.” 

“You didn’t drink, either,” Cassian starts up the car. “Is it okay to leave him?” Ethan is now, in their periphery, trying to fumble for his car keys. 

John inhales, “Do you know a Renata Tarasov?” He is still watching the door of the building like a hawk. Just like the odd certainty of a stitching awl pressed against his clavicle, he has one of those bad feelings. That if he looks away, he might lose an eye. Or worse. 

Cassian reaches for a cigarette for himself. He lights it, and the dull click of the lighter translates smoothly in John’s mind as a very clear release of a safety of a gun. Instinctively, he reaches for -- nothing. He’s not armed. “She is probably a Tarasov. Know the name?” 

John is having visions of killing both Santino and Gianna D’Antonio with his bare hands. Or maybe he can take them to the basement and bash their heads in. Then he can have his life back. His tiny, insignificant life buried in a cage with old books that people buy just for show. 

Maybe. 

“Helen mentioned them to me once,” John says. He finally lights a cigarette for himself. The nicotine is strange and foreign in his system, but the irritation is almost welcome. At a stretch, it’s almost feels familiar, if John calls up the times when he used to lie awake taking desperate hits from a bong. 

That too, is a long time ago. 

“She really did tell you everything, didn’t she?” 

John shrugs. Ethan has now, managed to get into his car and get the engine going. He careens out of his spot and disappears around the corner. Good enough. “Not really everything.” 

Cassian rolls down the window on his side and exhales smoke. “...She might have worked for them, if they didn’t give her an awful nickname. Those Russians really like their symbolism, everything must tell a damn story, you know? But sometimes it really misses the mark.” 

“A nickname.” 

“Baba Yaga,” Cassian’s mouth twitches. “She hated it.” 

“Well, she would,” John says. “Its connotations aren’t great. They might as well have called her the Babadook.” 

“What’s that?” 

“It’s,” John starts and stops. “Never mind. It’s from a movie.” 

Cassian slides the car out of the parking spot and turns them to the direction of the Continental. “...Do you want to know what we called her?” 

John flicks his cigarette out of the window. “What did you call her?”

“Something worthy of her talents,” Cassian says. “Il Mostro di Napoli. She had the entire city running shit scared.” 

 

Gianna is sitting by Santino’s bed. Instead of sisterly concern, she kind of looks like she wants to eat him. Sometimes, John thinks about how his life would be, if he’d had a sibling. If he’d had immediate knowledge that someone had come from the same place he did, and that their lives were also as shit, that he might not have had to compensate so much.

But that’s neither here nor there and there’s a part of him that thinks Gianna might do his job for him and stab her half-brother while he’s passed out. 

“All right? You don’t look the best.” she says. 

“I’m losing it,” John says, hopefully jokingly enough. “Otherwise fine.” 

Gianna fixes him with a look. “Tell me.” 

“Do you know a,” and then John swallows. “Never mind.” He halfway expects Cassian to fill in the blanks (because hey, it’s that kind of day where everything’s fucked. Again.) “If I sleep. Will someone wake me in two hours?” 

“You want to be woken up in two hours,” Gianna’s look turns narrow and suspicious. “Why?” 

“I want to sleep,” John says. That much, at least, is true. He feels like he has collected enough absurdity in his body recently to warrant some rest. In reality, John probably needs to go to sleep for something like a week. He’ll wake up, and all of this will be over. Sleep makes him human, after all, in a world where apparently that doesn’t count. 

“You can post Cassian outside of my room or whatever. Not exactly in a mood to jump out a window.” John turns to leave. 

 

John wakes to Santino D’Antonio standing beside his bed. The guy doesn’t waste any words, and his usual bravado seems muted. “...It’s been two hours. Maybe we should talk.” 

Santino is still looking pale and not a hundred-percent, but at least he is not bleeding or spilling his guts all over the place. The bruise where John has landed him one has more or less settled into something yellow-purple. Which means it will heal. 

“Maybe. Yeah.” John drags himself up on the bed. He can’t exactly put it into words but he definitely feels like it’s a bad idea to be prone on his back while someone like Santino is around. He tries to remember if he’s slept. He probably has, as in he can’t remember anything. John doesn’t dream often, not anymore. 

Santino runs his hand over the slightly wrinkled sheet covering the mattress. “May I?”

Such deference to what John wants seems out of character for Santino. But maybe being shot in the gut and being allowed to live is humbling. John is still feeling a bit of that from Winston in the bar, but again, that’s something he is determined not to think about. 

“Go ahead,” John nods. “Sit on the other side.” 

Santino takes a long moment, and then obeys, a bit like a kicked dog. He sits down on the other side of the bed, leaving a healthy space between them. Nearly an ocean. “I’m sorry about Helen, John. I really am. I...tried to get in touch with her once, about three years ago. She wouldn’t return my call. I left messages.” 

“She was sick then. Just getting sick. I deleted the messages that were for her without listening to them. She didn’t need that. And I certainly couldn’t --” John shuts his eyes tight. “...What did the two of you do? What is the Impossible Task?” 

Santino is still, and then he expels a breath. “It’s a story and a half. Almost as good as Boccaccio.” 

“I’ve got time,” John says. Or he doesn’t really, but it’s time enough. 

“A man named Viggo Tarasov had a brother; the brother, Abram, had a beautiful wife, seven sons, including bastards. He was either very lucky or very unlucky to not have daughters.” Santino says. He seems to have settled in, nearly comfortable in the knowledge that he and John are stuck in the same place. 

They still don’t look at each other. 

John can’t help himself. “Are you saying that because of your sister?” 

There must really be something wrong with Santino because he ignores the jab. “Abram Tarasov also had significant holdings in New Jersey and New England while Viggo looked after the _bratva_ ’s interests in New York. Now Abram doesn’t have any of these things because he’s dead and his family is dead. We killed his sons, their wives, and anyone who might have been in a position to exact revenge. The price of Helen’s marriage to you, John, is the death of nearly a hundred people. There was of course, collateral damage so I can’t give you the exact number. 

“Abram’s Seat on the High Table became vacant, and we bid for it.” Here, Santino turns smug, as if he’d told this story countless times, and this. This is the bit that people should be impressed by. “Ask anyone else, they would have accused us of foul play. But really, it’s pure business. Anyone could have done it, would have done it, if they had the means. We were only capitalizing on what we had. On the time we had before the Monster of Naples left us.” 

For a moment, John says nothing. He suddenly has now, a new understanding of his dead wife, of why she clung to violence. It’d really been a lifeline. Perhaps the only thing she’d understood but she’d tried her very best at everything else. 

“Monster of Naples,” John says. 

“All reputations begin with what other people think of you,” Santino tells him with a sideways smile. The smile seems to sit at odds with his youthful face, like a freshly sharpened knife. “With that name, no one saw her coming. I came up with it, when I was twelve.” 

“Did you?” 

“I wanted to conjure a vision,” Santino looks pointedly away from John and focuses his gaze elsewhere. “A nightmare that would take over the entire city. That was the best I got. Sometimes, it’s nice to stick to something simple.” 

“Some kid you must have been.” 

“Maybe I was never a kid,” Santino returns. “Were you ever?” 

John doesn’t want to dwell on it. So he swerves and changes tact. Nothing will ever beat his ploy to shoot the Manager of the Continental in the head, but he’s got to try something. 

“I mean, isn’t that what murder is? Foul play.” 

“You think you’re funny.” 

“She thought I was,” John says, looking away too. 

“She probably thought you were just normal. Blessedly normal. With a job. A normal outlook on life.” 

 

_”Hey you, Nearly Average Schmuck.” They’ve developed a routine at night before bed. One that John has almost come to like for how very strange it is. Certainly, for the fact that it can’t be found anywhere else._

_John looks up. “Are you ever going to get tired of saying that?”_

_“Never,” Vanilla fills his nose as Helen climbs into bed next to him. “Or no. That’s a strong word. But not yet. Not by a long shot.” Her head is a warm inviting weight on his shoulder. “What are you reading?”_

_John shows her the cover. Don DeLillo. _Players_. He’s read it before. “About a bunch of middle class people accidentally becoming terrorists. You know, just trying to get into the mood.” _

_“How do you accidentally become a terrorist?”_

_“The same way you accidentally marry a hitwoman.” John ribs back. “Probably.”_

_“Contract killer,” she frowns. “Former.”_

_“The same way you accidentally marry a former contract killer,” John tries it out. “Nope. Doesn’t really work. It sounds like I married a murderous paperclip.” He spots her about to open her mouth, “ -- No. A_ paperclip _. You’re not serious.”_

_Helen thinks. John hopes for a moment that it wasn’t because she has killed more than one person with a paperclip and she’s trying to weigh different instances for value by way of interesting content. Or, no, he doesn’t know what he finds more disturbing. The fact that Helen might not even remember how she did it, next to that one time she gauged someone’s eye out with a screwdriver or that one time she managed to do someone serious harm using the coil ripped out the side of a spiral notebook._

_“Why wouldn’t I be, John? You should always mean to do someone harm. Otherwise it isn’t fair. But yes,” Helen settles in, adjusting her pillow. She flips on her side, staring intently at his elbow. “Once with a paperclip. Up somebody’s nose. Dug out half of his brain.”_

_John can feel Helen’s gaze leave his elbow, traveling up and up. She’s still has that assassin’s stare which he is learning to deal with. Mostly by reminding himself that he will never be caught on the wrong side of it._

_“I have no idea what to say,” he tries. “Good job?”_

_“You know, you’re very funny.”_

_“A riot?”_

_“Nearly,” Helen worms her way underneath the crook of John’s arm. Kind of like a puppy, but because John does, on some level value his life (only recently), he keeps that to himself. “Do you think we got married by accident, John?”_

_“If you think, and if I think,” John says, pressing a faint kiss to his wife’s hairline. “Nothing is an accident.”_

 

“Look at me,” John says, and Santino does. 

“Do you really think I’m normal?” 

Santino considers this, finally says, “I guess not. But this sort of thing, it’s relative. Example: I get shot all the time.” 

“But you’re still not used to the pain.” 

“Fuck you,” Santino spits. But the venom in his voice seems to have died halfway. As if someone has taken a straw to him suddenly and sucked him dry. 

“How is the pain, anyway?” 

“I’m medicated,” Santino shrugs. “So I can deal.” 

John rolls his shoulders and wills the last of heavy sleep to leave his eyes. He blinks, clears, and gets out of bed. “You well enough to walk around?” 

“What did you think I did get to get here, John? Crawl?” 

John ignores him. It seems the best course of action. “Come somewhere with me.” 

Santino stands too, but suspicion catches at his spine and he looks John up and down. “Where, exactly?” 

“She loved it,” John says, arming himself with the truth. “Is that enough for you?” 

“Is anything enough for her?” Santino says, now a bit sour, “I did the most grownup thing I could think of and still it wasn’t enough.” 

 

They go downstairs to the lobby. The first thing John spots is Winston, casually stationed at the front desk, engaging Charon in conversation. The conversation all but dies when they notice John and Santino trying to creep past. John likes to think that they’re not creeping whatsoever, but the look Winston fixes them with, it’s like they’re less than maggots trying to wiggle out of a corpse long dead. 

John has Helen’s gun tucked in the waistband of his pants and the way Winston is now peering at the bulge of the piece and the extent to which he is trying not to laugh is almost admirable. 

Then Winston says, “...Going somewhere?” 

John thinks for a moment. “I’m going to take him to a basement and then I’m going to shoot him.” 

Santino stops dead in his tracks. 

“You _what_?” His voice is at once sharp and anxious. 

“Shut up,” John says. 

Winston looks between them. “I’ve told you before, haven’t I, John? That even if you manage to kill the origin of the Marker, you’d still have to deal with…” 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Gianna strides up to them. 

“That,” Winston says mildly. Then he turns to Charon, as if he’s said his piece and that’s the end of that. “As discussed, then?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

The concierge looks up to catch John’s gaze and he looks away. This is not the time to puzzle over whether Charon is the type to hold a grudge. John is about fifty-fifty on this. Despite what seasoned gamblers will tell you, these odds are the worst. 

“Well?” Gianna says, with a cursory nod towards the front desk. Then she stares and stares, until John gets conscious enough to want to adjust Helen’s gun in his pants. 

“Well,” Sanitno clears his throat. “I’m taking him to the hospital. To see the old man.” He steals a glance at John, who is careful not to react. “I know it won’t make up for the store, John. But there’s no point in sending you into a den blind when I’d like you to succeed.” He tilts his head towards the mouth of the lobby. 

“Will you come with me?” 

“All right,” John nods after a moment, after the world’s gone still. He follows, but looks straight ahead, taking great care not to bow his head like a dog.


	9. One Foot in Front of the Other

_”Are you cold?”_

_The cage is temperature-controlled at the low end of the comfort zone, 68 degrees. Just on the cusp of okay for the books. Mooney has always liked the cold. John wishes he wasn’t remembering that now. It’s Mooney’s opinion that John doesn’t pay attention, doesn’t remember, but now he remembers everything._

_Helen, not wearing anything but a threadbare blanket that needed a wash before but probably needed one more, now, stares at him with an amused glint in her eye. “I was once sent to Siberia; it was the dead of winter. The heaviest thing I’d brought with me was a coat fit for an Italian autumn. I think it was Gucci.”_

_Still, John gets up to knock the thermostat up a couple of degrees. He figures it can’t hurt, and it is not as if Mooney will come down here and catch them unawares. “Wasn’t aware they still sent people to Siberia. Isn’t that very last century?”_

_“I wasn’t a prisoner,” Helen says. “Was just there on a job. Anyway, it was very cold. So I guess I’m not, now.”_

_John studies her for a long minute. “Are we ever going to be able to have a normal conversation?”_

_Helen matches him gaze for gaze, black for black. “Is that what you want?”_

_“I don’t know what I want,” John says. “Maybe I never did.”_

_She gets up, dragging the blanket with her. John doesn’t think Helen means to be modest. “You would have liked doing what I do.”_

_“I don’t think that’s true,” John tells her. “I don’t enjoy it, the way you seem to.”_

_“You could have grown into that,” Helen says, she reaches for him and presses her nose into the ridges of John’s spine. “What I mean is, is that you never have to think about what you want. You only want one thing from life, from the job. It’s always one foot in front of the other.”_

 

Outside on the steps of the New York Continental Hotel, John checks his watch. Time is bleeding and disappearing fast. He’s got less than five hours left. 

Santino is watching him warily out of the corner of his eye. “In a hurry to get somewhere?” 

John inhales, “Not really. But traffic does get pretty bad; it’s almost rush hour. Do you want to go to the hospital?”

“Well,” Santino rolls back his shoulders, as if to confirm to himself that he is still upright and breathing. “I guess it depends. Are you really going to take me to a basement and shoot me in the head?” The retort, where it would have aimed to cut before, sounds hollow. 

“It’s tempting,” John says, because that’s what Santino probably expects him to. “But I’ve got no bullets. It’s not something you have to worry about.” 

“Great, I’ll cross that off my list,” Santino snorts. “Come, we’ll go to the hospital. On the off chance I have to worry, it’s good practice for a son to say _addio_ to his old man. Even if he is the runt of the family.” 

 

The traffic does get bad, and John finds that he’s on edge. Every face that he has a chance to catch in his rearview mirror, even if it’s just a blur, the chance of them being a Tarasov is not zero. This is a city of a million rats.

A hand claps him on the shoulder and John’s first instinct is to throw his elbow back, a grip seizes him on the bone and John sucks in a breath. 

“Will you relax?” Santino says, but he doesn’t let go. 

“Are you? Relaxed?” John glances at the man a bit sideways. He’s just about able to keep the car straight in the lane. He has not drawn unnecessary attention to himself and that is a good thing. That’s a great thing. 

“I’ve,” Santino starts and stops. For a moment, John wonders if the man is going to regale him with various tales of his near deaths. After all, Santino D’Antonio has been avoiding the hand of death ever since he was twelve. But then Santino’s shoulders sink and he turns his eyes away from John and stares instead at the slow crawl of cars around them. “I’ve had to get used to it. One foot in front of the other.” 

John stills. “What did you say?” 

Santino says, “I said, it’s all one foot in front of the other. If I think about it too much, John, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.”

“Did she tell you that?” 

The traffic crawls along an insufferable two inches and Santino turns back to him. John thinks that the look means something else, but he’s aware that he’s also got to keep his eyes on the road and mind the eyes of other people. It is a lot to keep track of. “So what if she did?” 

The morning after Helen’s funeral, when John had put his wife in the ground, he’d woken up like it was any other day. At first, John had felt it very slowly, as if it wasn’t quite real or connected to him, but then he became used to being eviscerated by it, the fact that Helen was gone. 

“What did the two of you talk about?” 

Santino seems surprised by the question. He takes a minute, says, “You mean, besides the obvious.” 

“Sure.” 

“Our hopes and dreams, I guess,” Santino says, a wavering twitch still clinging to his mouth. “The fact that she hated pasta _al dente_ , the fact that she wished that she had more time to read.” 

“She told you that?” 

“I went to university,” Santino says finally. “It was not a very good one, because there were practical considerations. Obviously, I couldn’t go too far from my father’s house or his grasp. But she tried to read all my books.” 

The whole of John’s body is suddenly undergoing a change, as if certain parts of him, the bits of him that systematically prepared for the war against loss every morning, a raging conflict without end, suddenly came at him all at once. John tries to inhale through his nose, but it’s like he is breathing underwater. 

“The light’s green,” Santino gestures, and they don’t say anything for the rest of the drive. 

 

John knows next to nothing about St. John’s hospital, other than the fact that it’s in the middle of Manhattan, and Helen hadn’t wanted to go there for treatment. Now he thinks he knows why. 

They manage to find a parking space and John slots quarters like a regular person into the parking meter and Santino just looks like he can’t be bothered. 

Inside the hospital, John is assaulted with a busy wash of activity. Some of the sensations, such as the dull flatlining of a heart monitor, the high-pitched scream of a toddler in pain are instantly familiar, and not in a good way. Usually, John is better about this sort of thing, handling noise, handling smell, but there’s something about a hospital that just throws everything out of balance. 

“Hey,” Santino’s voice sounds from somewhere. “Hey, John. Come on, stay here. One foot in front of the other.” 

_“What I mean is, is that you never have to think about what you want. You only want one thing from life, from the job. It’s always one foot in front of the other.”_

“I might be sick,” John says, feeling something thick and unnatural well up. 

“You’re not going to,” Santino grips his hand and John feels himself coming back into focus. “You’re not going to because you _can’t_. All right? You’re better than this.” 

 

_”John,” it’s Helen calling him from somewhere. But John can’t figure out from where and his head is spinning in at least a dozen different directions. “John, get up.”_

_He opens his mouth and tries to speak, but no sound comes out. John coughs, and something stabs him reliably near the ribs. “I think I broke something.”_

_“Probably,” Helen nods. John forces himself to blink, trying to get his vision to clear. “Get up. You’re better than this. I’m counting to three.”_

_“Wait. Please wait.”_

_“One, two, thr --”_

 

John is faintly aware that Santino has let go of his hand and that they’ve somehow wormed their way in front of a snaking line to reception, where a nurse looks at both of them. “Excuse me, you can’t do this. There’s a line.” 

“I can do what I like,” Santino says, baring his teeth at her. “And I’m here to see my old man, Vincenzo D’Antonio.” 

The nurse fixes him with another look and then goes to consult a file. John watches her spine as it stiffens. She knows. She’ll do as she’s told. Everyone does. 

“Mr. D’Antonio’s room is on the fourth floor. There’s an elevator at the end of this corridor here, if you’ve not been to see him before.” She gestures. 

In the elevator, Santino heaves a sigh. It sounds like a noise that he’s been holding in for ages. As if he’s exhausted and not so relaxed, after all. “Okay, so we know that if I ask to see my father, they won’t question me. They might question you.” 

John says, “Yeah. They might.” 

But as soon as the elevator opens to the fourth floor, John gets a bad feeling. What Helen calls “eyes in back of your head.” You don’t always know, but you feel it, and when you feel it, it means something bad’s going to --

“I’ll need you to remove your firearm, _per favore_.” 

John finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Which is somehow calming, because he knows how to handle this exactly. 

At his elbow, Santino says, “Stefano. This man is my bodyguard; is that really necessary?” 

Or maybe this is the reason that the nurse didn’t ask them any more questions. Because she knows that the men upstairs have guns. Men with guns are, in John’s halfway professional opinion, mediocre at asking questions, but they are great at getting answers. So it all balances out. 

“I think the better question is, why would you feel the need to bring a bodyguard here, to this floor.” Stefano says, using his towering height to peer down on Santino, who doesn’t give an inch. John doesn’t particularly want to be, but he’s impressed. “It is not as if we are not family, no?” 

“You can have my gun,” John says. “It’s not loaded.” 

Stefano apparently finds this funny, and after he checks Helen’s gun to confirm that John’s telling the truth, he hands it back to him butt first. “You must not be a very good bodyguard.” Maybe it’s just John’s imagination, but maybe Stefano seems relieved. 

“I’m learning on the job,” John tells him. “It’s my first time.” 

Stefano makes short work of patting Santino down too, and pockets a knife. It seems odd to John that Santino isn’t armed to the teeth, but maybe he’s used to his bodyguards (or indeed, just other people) doing his dirty work. 

“He was eating the last time I checked in on him; he doesn’t like it when people watch him eat,” Stefano says. “Come this way.” 

 

John tries to parse out whether he can take Stefano in a fight. The man is taller than he is, which doesn’t happen all that often, so he takes notice. But the man doesn’t have weight, just a compact wiriness about him that makes the man need his bones more. 

“How’s the leg?” 

“...What did you say?” 

John gestures, “You have an uneven step. Hurt yourself recently?” 

Santino snorts, “It depends on who you ask. He was dropped on his ankle as a baby.” 

Stefano stops in mid-step and John can see him think about it, whether it is wise to clock him one. John hates to admit it, but he knows the feeling. He quickens his own stride, so to put himself between Santino and the possibility of a cold cock.

“What are you doing?” Santino eyes him narrowly as John clamps a hand around his neck to stop him in his tracks. 

“Getting into the spirit,” John says. 

The floor seems to be abandoned, but endless. John immediately catches on to this as a security measure and he takes careful note of the twists and turns. John knows that they are getting closer when there starts being a man stationed at every corner. Stefano nods at all of them, sometimes addressing the men by name. 

One says, “He’s still got a gun.” 

“It’s not loaded,” Stefano says. “You can see for yourself, Gustave.” 

Finally, they get to a door that is crowded over with men. They all look the same: bored, big, bearded. John is suddenly reminded of the fact that he probably needs a shave. Still, the group seems to wake up and part like the Red Sea once they spot Stefano coming down the corridor. 

“The little prince would like to see his father.” 

“And do you think that’s wise?” 

“It is my birthright to see my old man when I want to,” Santino says. “Or have you forgotten? Have all of you forgotten?” 

The men look at each other; then they look at Stefano, and then John. Stefano nods, but the movement comes haltingly, as if his ankle isn’t the only thing that is broken and healing up on his body. “The door stays open.” 

Santino’s mouth twists. “Thought we were all family, Stefano. That’s what you said.”

“You can take my terms, or leave.” 

“John comes in with me,” Santino says. 

“I can accept that,” Stefano nods and goes to open the door. “Make it quick.” 

 

John doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Mooney’s a husk of a man on his good days, but Santino’s father is nearly the opposite of that. Vincenzo D’Antonio is well-dressed, well-groomed, with his thinning hair combed carefully over his scalp. If not for the dialysis machine that sits by the sick man’s bed and the harsh hospital lighting, they might have intruded upon Vincenzo in his bedroom. 

“ _Ciao, birichino. Cosa è successo?_ You look like shit.” Vincenzo D’Antonio says to his son. 

Santino seems to take this in stride. “You would too, if someone shot you. Anyway, Papa, I just wanted you to have some company.” 

Vincenzo makes a noise that straddles the odd chord between amusement and disappointment. “Who shot you?” 

Santino shrugs one shoulder. “That’s not something you have to worry about. You just worry about your operation. Are you well looked after here?” 

His father sighs, as if Santino’s question is frivolous and not worth asking. To John, it almost is and isn’t, but he is certainly not in any position to judge the caliber of other people’s family interactions. “I better be. The doctors come and here and trip over themselves to get me what I want. Or else they piss themselves.” 

“Or get shot in the head?” Santino offers dryly. 

“So far it hasn’t happened, Stefano is under strict orders.” Finally, Vincenzo seems to register John’s presence in the room. “Who is this?” 

“Just a guy who tried to shoot your son. Still working on it.” John says. It’s a gamble, but maybe one worth taking. “It’s why I still have this gun, here.” 

Vincenzo stares at John for a long time. Then he starts laughing, a nearly crazy sound that has all the guys still crowded around the doorway straightened up and tried to peer inside. After a little while, Vincenzo seems to come back to himself and shake his head. “You’re very funny.” 

Santino says, “Or he tries to be.” 

“Yeah,” John echoes. “I just try to be.” 

Vincenzo claps his hands together, not unlike a young boy fascinated by a joke he doesn’t quite understand but somehow finds hilarious anyway. “Well, take my word for it, you are funny. I would like to remember your name.” 

John forces a breath to go to his lungs. “My name is John Wojewódzki. It means that I’m someone who is ready for war.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One (possibly two!) chapters left. Thanks for being here :).


	10. Respite

_It’s dark in the room. The temperature in the cage never changes. It’s always 68 degrees. But then John finds he’s freezing. When the light overhead suddenly comes on again, after what seems like an age, he is not prepared for it. Hours, minutes, even a second can drag on into something infinitesimal like time has forgotten to pass for him, and then of course, time forgets about him altogether._

_It’s almost like John is doomed to be stuck here forever. Trained like one of Pavlov’s dogs to be rooted to the spot in the dark, waiting for a master who might never return._

_Suddenly:_

_“Get up,” Mooney’s voice sounds, filling up all at once, the dead space of the cage._

_“I’m trying to,” John says. “It’s cold and I can’t feel anything. I must have fallen asleep. Give me -- give me a minute.” HIs eyes are adjusting now, to the light. From his vantage point on the floor, he can see the scuffed toes of Mooney’s preferred heavy-soled boots. They’re better to kick with, and John knows that he hasn’t been knocked around in a while._

_Today might be the day, or it might not be. Still, it’s always better to know the worst that might happen, rather than to be blindsided by it._

_“I don’t give a fuck whether or not you try, John. I only give a damn when that you_ do _.” Mooney snarls. “Get up.”_

_And John does. He follows Mooney out of the cage, up the stairs, and into the sun. The city smells pretty fucking damn awful like it always does. He suddenly has this crazy idea, of stepping into a parallel reality and pushing the man into oncoming traffic._

_But John decides in the end, that now is not the time._

 

“Your name is John what?” Santino prompts, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“I’m not saying it again,” John says. “Besides, you’re never going to say it right. I’ve said it five times.” 

Santino makes a displeased noise in his throat. He gets into the car again and tugs at his seatbelt, before he clicks it into place, he twists around again to look at John, who is determinedly staring ahead. “Wojewódzki.” (In reality, off the tip of his tongue: “widget-owzki.”)

“Better,” John has to admit. “But still not close. Wouldn’t feel too bad about it if I were you, she couldn’t say it either.” 

Santino laughs, but the sound is tight and it dies the moment it leaves his mouth. “So.” 

“So,” John echoes. He turns the key in the ignition just for something to do. Anyway, it looks like they’re just about out of time on the meter so it is better to get moving. “I’ll level with you. I can’t do it.” 

The younger man fixes him with a narrow look. “Never figured you for a quitter. Are you still in a moral quandary?”

John glances down at his watch again. “No. But look at that hospital. Look at that floor. Look at how much Stefano actively hates you, family or no family. You might as well be sending a man in there, into the lion’s maw to die. I thought that wasn’t the point.” 

Santino doesn’t answer. Instead, he changes the subject. “Why do you keep looking at your watch?” 

Time will keep on bleeding even if John stands still. He makes a decision, even though he doesn’t know whether he’ll regret it just yet. “It’s near dinnertime. Still feeling pizza?” 

 

Santino declares that he is indeed still feeling pizza, but he gets to pick the restaurant. John doesn’t care that much for pizza, but he’s not about to argue. They end up in a hole in the wall in Brooklyn, a place that Helen had liked. John is relieved, that the place has since been done up, probably to better service the clientele that has since crowded into the neighborhood. 

It makes him feel less weird about being in here. 

“She told me about this place,” Santino says, once they’re seated. “Do you want to share some wine?” 

“I’m driving, aren’t I?” 

“Right” Santino rolls his eyes. “You’re a law abiding citizen, I forget.”

“I also don’t drink,” John says. The fact that he is or isn’t a law abiding citizen is possibly up for debate. The reality that he still doesn’t really enjoy drinking isn’t that. It’s not something Santino can just take away from him, even though the man almost looks like he’d like to try. 

“Why?” Santino starts. He looks offended. 

“Never took to it,” John says. It’s the truth. “I don’t like losing control of myself.” 

Santino seems to consider this. John doesn’t watch the man’s mouth as much as he does the man’s shoulders. A face can lie easily enough if you work at it. The rest of the body, now, that’s something else. Santino tenses, as if gearing up for an argument or a fight. Then he lets go of himself, as if assenting that John has a bit of a point. 

Someone stops by to take their order, and Santino asks for a carafe of some Italian red and John asks for a jug of water. 

After, Santino says, without looking at him, “What about now?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean,” Santino separates the words neatly, like he is detaching meaty tendon from bone. “You’re not exactly in control now, John. Just look at your life.” 

That’s a tall order, so John looks at the menu instead. He’s relieved that none of the classics have really changed. It’d long been Helen’s complaint that John isn’t adventurous; that he isn’t very good at taking stock of things or indeed, making a change. From where John sits, there’s never been any point. 

At least, that’s he used to think. If only Helen can see him now. 

“You’re not really a tough guy, either.” John points out. The moment he’d said it, he wishes he hadn’t. 

Santino opens his mouth and then shuts it when someone comes over with a carafe of wine and a jug of water. “Of course not.” He reaches to fill his own glass, but not before gesturing. “Sure you don’t want any?” 

“Positive,” John says, and Santino pours him some anyway in the glass that’s meant for water. “Hey. I said --” 

“I know what you said,” Santino says. “I also chose to ignore you. There’s more than one way to retain control, isn’t there? Have some wine, John. The pizza will, what the word, mop up the alcohol. You’ll be fine to drive.” 

“I was trying to ignore you,” John inhales and stares unhappily at his glass. “But then you pulled a _rocket launcher_ and blew up my shop.” 

“I said I was sorry.” Santino takes a sip of his own wine. John is halfway expecting him to frown or sneer at the taste, but the moment passes. If Helen did tell him about this place, then she must have done her due diligence about the quality of the wine. “I am, I might have overreacted. But it’s no worse than you threatening to shoot the Manager.” 

“Now you say that.” John is going to ignore the other thing. 

Santino merely fixes him with another look. “At least I’m saying it. Do you want to know how often Gianna apologizes? And don’t even get me started on my father.” 

John stares into his wine glass, the liquid in it too thin and too dark to be mistaken for even de-oxygenated blood. He drinks, and concludes that he prefers the house red served at the Continental. But he doesn’t tell Santino that. 

Instead, John says, “I accept your apology.”

Santino blinks, the gesture surprisingly boyish. John thinks he sees it now, that Santino only wants so much, because he has spent his entire life being told he can’t have anything. That apologies are somehow not meant for sincerity, but as a measure of defense. 

Even Helen was -- John shakes the thought from his head. It’s a rabbit hole he doesn’t want to go down. 

“That’s it?” 

“Were you expecting something else?” John asks.

Santino shrugs. “There isn’t a man around me who doesn’t understand the value of revenge. Sorry’s more like a. Lip service. Not a gesture. Not the way you’re taking it.” 

“That’s the nicest way anyone’s ever put it, that they might stab me in the back one day.” 

“ _È la vita,_ ” Santino says, but his mouth works in a million different directions, as if he isn’t certain whether to laugh, to scowl, or something else entirely. 

The same waiter who’d delivered their wine and water comes back around to ask if they’d like to order. John thinks they’re both relieved. 

 

The pizza is good, presumably. John doesn’t taste much. His stomach is in knots and the fact that he’s not overly fond of pizza. _That_ is something he definitely is not telling Santino and taking to the grave. The way things are going, it’s probably not going to take long. 

“Or are you afraid?” Santino prompts.

“I was in the Marines,” John says. “It’s not like I’m.” 

Santino waves away his unfinished sentence, like he’s eager to move onto bigger and better things. “Enjoy it?” 

“She asked me the same thing.” John looks away. He shoves more pizza in his mouth as an excuse not to talk. But suddenly, Santino seems to have summoned up patience from somewhere, and he waits. “What is it with you people?” 

Santino smiles with one edge of his mouth. “‘You people,’ like we’re foreign objects. We’re not so different from you, a man who doesn’t want to be normal.” 

John sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. He is suddenly grateful for even the option of wine to take the edge off, but he is conscious of it not being a great feeling. “Yes, I did. But only once.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It means,” John starts and stops again. “It means I gave Roland Mooney an air embolism. I felt relieved afterwards. I felt good.” 

Santino seems to consider this. “Was it her suggestion? Or did you come up with it yourself?” 

“I read up on it,” John says. “I think Helen would have preferred I use a gun. Or a paperclip. Make a statement.” 

“I remember the paperclip,” Santino says. 

“You do?” 

“I have never heard a man scream like that before or since,” Santino reaches to pour himself some more wine and this time, John is quicker; he pushes his glass out of reach before Santino can tilt the carafe towards it. “It’s something that stays with you. Hell of a statement.” 

“I see that.” 

Then Santino’s mouth twists into something unkind again. “So what’s this, your stupid rule about not doing in a sick person. Remorse? Self-penance?” 

“It’s --” John starts, but his phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes it out and it’s an unknown number. “Excuse me.” 

“You can answer it here,” Santino says. “In fact, I insist.” 

John suddenly gets a bad feeling; a familiar sinking stone descends into his gut like he’s just ingested something unpleasant. He picks up, holds the phone to his ear and says, “This is John Wick.” 

 

_”I’m sorry I lied to you,” Helen says, once they’re officially stuck in traffic somewhere in Midtown. Well, that’s not true. John knows exactly where they are, although sometimes everywhere in the city, in its ever sprawling limits, feels like somewhere._

_John is not normally an angry person. He’s had the anger rubbed out of him by the world long before. But he thinks, he could get angry now, while he has the chance. While Helen just looks a little tired and like she’d be back to her old self after a nap, while he can delude himself into thinking that she isn’t sick._

_“How long have you known?”_

_“A while.”_

_“Please don’t lie to me again. I can forgive you once.”_

_“Two years,” Helen sighs. “When I got the preliminary diagnosis. I knew I had to get out, they’d eat me alive if they knew I was sick.”_

_That’s even worse than a lie. John is careful to keep his eyes on the road. “What am I then, just the nearest sharp object?”_

_“You were,” she says, reaching to grasp his knee. If John really concentrates, he thinks he can feel it, the faintest tremor in her fingers, warning him of worse days still to come. “But I love you, John. I love you. Say you love me.”_

_The words are stuck in his throat. So instead, John puts his hand on top of Helen’s and squeezes until her fingers are still. If he’s hurt her, Helen doesn’t say anything._

 

“Hello John, it’s Viggo Tarasov.” 

John fights the urge to squirm in his chair like some novice. He clears his throat and reaches for his wine glass. On second thought, perhaps not. “Hello, Viggo. I’m having dinner. Can’t this wait?” 

“You’re running out of time.” 

“I’ve still got, three hours left.” John checks his watch. “What do you want?” 

“I can wait,” Viggo assents. “But I’m not sure if your friend Ethan can. My niece is a bit of a firecracker, a real go-getter.” 

“You said you weren’t going to ambush me.” 

“It’s not an ambush. Just an insurance policy, like I said, I’m not like those blasted Italians.” Viggo chuckles at his own joke. 

Speaking of, John raises his eyes to glance at Santino. The man has gone back to his pizza, but of course he’s listening. 

“Can I speak to Ethan?” 

“No.” 

John sighs, “Then maybe I think he’s dead, and I’m still going to take my goddamn three hours, and by the end of that, you really might not like the decision I have to make.” 

“You’d take that chance?” 

“You lost to me at poker, Viggo. We can go again.” 

Now Santino’s paying real attention. There’s a piece of stringy cheese just hanging off the edge of his fork. 

Viggo makes an unhappy sound. “I’m going to put you on hold.” 

In the space, Santino says, “Something you want to tell me?” 

“Like you want me to spell it out?” 

The line clicks again. “John?” It’s unmistakably Ethan’s voice, but John can hear that he isn’t well, muddled and faint. “John, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I should have listened to you,” Ethan gurgles, though John doesn’t think either of them feels better knowing this for a fact. “What the hell is happening?” 

“I’m not really sure.” It's not exactly a lie; John does and he doesn't. Besides, it seems the kinder thing to do, to keep Ethan in the dark.

Then suddenly, it’s Viggo back on the line. “Satisfied?” 

“Not really,” John says. “Kind of pissed off, actually.” 

“This is you pissed off?” 

“I’m slow to anger. But maybe when I get there nobody has a nice time. What the fuck do you want?” 

‘I want to meet to ensure your fidelity to the cause, John. The Red Circle. It’s in the city, One hour.” After that, the line goes dead.


	11. A Fighting Chance

A lifetime passes in a second. He’s felt this sort of thing before, a dizzying whirl wherein Helen was alive one second and then dead the next. 

John notes that the nearest sharp object to him is the little stack of toothpicks that has come with the assorted olives. He picks one up, wonders if it will be enough to recreate the incident with the paperclip. If splinters up a man’s nasal passage will really hurt like a son of a bitch or if Santino is the sort of guy who is really used to pain. 

After all, Santino looks like he’s used to a lot of things. He spreads his hands out flat on the tablecloth, but not before he wipes his fingers clean from the pizza grease. 

“You better not be thinking what I think you are.” 

John flags down the waiter to ask for an extra glass. “I’m thinking that I don’t have a paperclip.”

Santino actually winces. Then he chugs some wine and seems to recover. “What did Viggo Tarasov promise you?” 

“How are you so sure it’s him?” John says, mostly just playing along. He would have thought of it previously as buying some time, but there isn’t time. The same waiter comes by and plops a glass down by John’s still unused napkin. He drags his feet, until the combined force of Santino and John’s stares drive him away again. 

“I don’t think he likes us,” Santino says, eyes not quite yet leaving the guy’s back. It’s almost as if he’s relishing the moment, of pulling a metaphorical knife out of the man’s spine. 

 

_The whole house smells of waste, of shit. It’s any wonder that Mrs. Mooney is still upright and moving. But if John stops to think about it, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her sit down, even during the better days. He collects himself. “How is he?”_

_“Asleep.” Mrs. Mooney turns away from him. “I’m just glad to have him home. I just don’t understand how this has happened. Roland is always so careful, the way he’s taught you to be...for him to have an accident like this --”_

_John doesn’t meet her gaze. He can’t, for the moment. He thinks that he should say something, defuse the moment. But when John finally gathers the courage to open his mouth, it’s Helen’s voice that comes out:_

_“Will you let us know if we can do anything, Enid? I’ll be glad to look in on him some afternoons, if you feel like it’s too much, if you need some time. And of course, John’s going to keep the shop above water.”_

_John says, “Hopefully a bit more than that.”_

_Nobody laughs. John’s not trying to be funny, anyway._

_Helen finds it silly that John still addresses them as Mr. and Mrs. Mooney. But it’s habit, what John has always done. It’s also habit, that Mrs. Mooney doesn’t take shit or help or charity. So it’s no surprise to John that the older woman shakes her head. “Roland and I are going to be fine. We always are.”_

_And from there, conversation dies a slow, even deserved death. Mrs. Mooney claims that she doesn’t need any help, but is glad to talk John and Helen through Mr. Mooney’s changed routine and John learns more than he’s ever wanted to about bedpan changes and adult diapers._

_Outside on the Mooneys’ porch, Helen squeezes John’s hand so hard that he can almost feel his knuckles crack._

_John says, inhaling sharply, “What?”_

_“Nothing,” Helen says, then -- “You should have said something to her.”_

_“Maybe I’m in shock. Mrs. Mooney has always been better at this kind of thing than me.”_

_“Still.”_

_He is telling the truth. John doesn’t know what he’s feeling, really, but Helen’s forte isn’t in John’s emotions which most of the time is a good thing. It’s dealing with the practical realities of whatever situation happens to be at hand. This is both good and bad for John, due to reasons that he doesn’t want to think about right now. “All right. Like what?”_

_She shrugs. “Aren’t you supposed to be the normal out of the two of us? Sure you can think of something.”_

_“You’ve made me like you,” John says. “You’ve made me --”_

_For a moment, Helen thinks about hitting him. John reads the thought in the tightening of her arm; he’s had enough practice by now that Helen is all but shouting her intentions at the top of her metaphysical lungs. But then she decides against it. Instead, she laughs, and the sound cuts deeper than any bruise and probably stay longer._

_“I don’t make you anything, John. God made men. Men? They make themselves. Even someone like you.”_

_“I,” John starts and then finds that he has nothing to say._

_Now Helen looks like she pities him, and John recognizes that too, but usually from another angle, like when he’s winded and flat on his back._

_“Or you could look at it this way,” Helen says. “Enid has a fighting chance now. If you think that, it absolves you.”_

_“Like she can put a pillow over his head any time.” John knows better by now, than to phrase that as a question._

_“Like I said,” Helen takes his hand again, but this time, she doesn’t squeeze. “A fighting chance. Come on, let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.”_

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” John says. 

“I’m smarter than him,” Santino says, smile widening like a shark’s. “Are you really going to sell me on the fact that Viggo is a common name?” 

“You never know.” John shrugs, “It’s New York, after all.” 

Santino’s smile seems to have caught on a snag at this, but John can’t tell what from. He says, “Now’s not the time to joke around, John.” 

“Just because I’m funny doesn’t mean I’m joking,” John says. “I’m fucking tired of everyone jerking me around. You. Viggo, Hel --” He stops himself. But by the way Santino’s gaze turns, he knows he’s too late. 

To his credit, Santino’s reaction is a lot milder than it should have -- could have been. He merely emptied the rest of the carafe into his glass and sighs, “You too, huh?” It’s not a question. 

John picks up his glass of water and clinks it against the rim of Santino’s wineglass. A hollow victory. “Yeah, me too.” 

 

Gianna D’Antonio looks a bit red in the face, but her eyes are still bright and sharp. There’s a half drunk glass of red next to her plate of tortellini. She chews, swallows. Does it again, and John can tell that Santino is annoyed by his sister’s listlessness. As for John, he finds he doesn’t mind, it looks like she’s thinking. Thinking’s good, you’re less likely to do something dumb. Gianna is probably a lot of things, but not that. 

Gianna says, finally: “So, what, you trust him now? I bet it’s a trap.” 

“It’s not about that,” Santino says. “We just understand each other, is all.” 

“I bet you understand him so much that you didn’t even bother asking him pertinent questions.” A single perfectly manicured fingernail presses itself deep into the creases of Santino’s forehead. Santino seems to recognize this as a familiar ritual and holds still to allow for its completion. “Because you don’t use your head.” 

John can’t help but feel that this is slightly unfair. “Remember the rocket launcher? He didn’t always trust me.” 

“I haven’t forgotten. Which begs the question --” Gianna removes her finger and wipes her hands on a napkin. She reaches for her wine but doesn’t sip from it. “Why now?” 

“Santino apologized,” John says. “I forgave him. So maybe we’re starting over. Got plenty else to be pissed off about, anyway.” 

“He apologized,” Gianna tastes the words, as if they are some strange new delicacy. And then she whirls on her brother. “You _apologized_.” 

Santino promptly shrinks six inches and doesn’t look at her. He says, “Yeah, so maybe I did. And I did ask. John was promised a normal life by Viggo Tarasov. If he --” here, Santino pauses to slice (very neatly, John thinks) his finger across his own throat. Then he repeats the motion and Gianna flinches but then freezes. “Does that. To both of us.” 

“Both of us,” Gianna says. “Jesus. That’s not worth normal.” 

“Go big or go home, I guess,” John says. 

“We’re going big.” Santino grins at him with all of his teeth. “We always do.” 

 

Except they don’t, on the simple account of Italians viewing dinner as the most important meal of the day so any grand gesture of rescue or fuck-you will have to wait until later, until everyone else sobers up. En route to an address in Brooklyn, Santino swears, “Fucking half of these people probably aren’t even from the old country. They probably just use their accents to fucking get laid.” 

John puts it away, that the next time he needs to gather a mafia army he needs to start making arrangements before 6 pm, before everyone starts tucking into dinner. He can’t think of anything more ridiculous, but his life seems to have a theme going. Why stop now? “And that’s what you’re hung up about? Don’t tell me you’ve never done it.” 

“Done what?” 

John says, “Get laid with your accent.” 

“I’m not going to answer that.” Santino scoffs, but his ears go a bit red at the edges. 

Cassian leans forward and props his elbows up between the driver and the passenger’s seats. “What he doesn’t want to tell you, is that he tried. She managed to convince him that it was a bad idea. Good thing too.” 

Santino whips around to glare at him. “Why the fuck are you here, anyway?” 

“Because,” Cassian draws out the word a jerks a finger in John’s direction that seems almost unkind. “He’s nuts, and contrary to popular belief, Gianna doesn’t want you to die.” 

“I’m crazy,” John keeps his eyes on the road. “Compared to you guys I’m.” 

“There’s only one person in this car who has tried to kill a Manager. It’s almost like killing God. Can’t be done,” Santino says. “I only threw up on his shoes once when I was fifteen and Winston’s never forgiven me. I can only imagine what he’d like to do to you.” 

John thinks about telling Santino and/or Cassian to crack open some Nietzsche. On a second thought, maybe not. He settles for, “Lucky me, God’s already dead.” 

 

John is not a hundred percent what they’re doing in Brooklyn since Viggo had warned him to meet up somewhere in the city. But as far as John can tell, a man with insurance is a man content to rest on his laurels for a little while. He has thought of every possibility, so now the chips might as well fall where they may.

Maybe the D’Antonios are banking on that too. At Cassian’s direction, John parks the car on an unassuming street. They’ll have to walk a block to the address; it’s less conspicuous that way. 

“And hold this.” Cassian says, shoving a semi-auto into John’s hands. “It’s fully loaded, but I’d still be careful with your rounds, if I were you. We don’t know how guarded they’re gonna be. We can only guess.” 

John weighs the weapon in his hands. It feels familiar and deadly and he has no trouble picturing the gun as a bludgeon. He can, if he takes a minute, he can even just about make out the dent such a blow might make to the back of somebody’s skull. He has Helen to thank for that. 

Santino gets one too, and John is almost surprised at the surety with which the younger man handles the gun. He supposes it shouldn’t be a shock. If Santino has been shot at as many as he claims to have been, then his not been able handle a gun would have been a travesty. 

“No rocket launcher?” 

Santino fixes him with a sour smile. He says, “We can’t go big, we might as well do it right, no? I learn from my mistakes. Don’t you dare take me for an idiot.”

Something sinks deep in John’s gut, and he thinks it must be the Marker. He takes it out and opens the box to press his thumb against Helen’s long dried blood. Not for the first time, his wife feels far away from him but unlike all of the other times, John doesn’t feel as lost. He feels okay, all right, like he finally has a fighting chance outside of a dark, dank basement. 

John says, “Will you absolve me?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, John knows Cassian is gearing for a fight. He doesn’t exactly fault the guy; it’s always good to be prepared. 

Santino says, “I’m not the Catholic Church. And as far as I’m concerned, I’m the one doing you a goddamn favor. We wouldn’t fucking be here if your fucking bookstore lackey --” 

“He has a name,” John grits out. More and more, the semi-auto becomes a bludgeon in his white-knuckled grasp, and it’s pretty fucking tempting. 

Except before John can make a real decision, something rushes by his ear and his car bursts into flames. In the space of a few seconds, it’s something else he’s lost. There’s a loud metal ringing in his ears and John is barely conscious of a blurred figure charging towards him. Santino moves, his semi-auto up and aimed.

 _”Be fucking pissed off,” Helen says. “You’re lucky I think you’re pretty. What are you doing, John?”_

In one fluid motion, as if he’s parting the seas to a new life, John shoves Santino out of the way and knocks the oncoming goon off his feet with a sharp kick to the shin. From there’s it’s all on automatic, like something’s either clicked into place or it’s come loose. First, John bashes his head in, and what do you know, the dent is almost perfect like in his imagination. Then he whales on the guy with his fists.

Again.

Again.

Again. The rhythm gets to be comforting, like he’s just molding some bleeding clay into shape. Something he’s meant to do all his life. 

Then, it’s a very clear, pointed metal that pierces through the white noise of his anger. Someone’s aimed a barrel at the nape of his neck. John stops, and holds up his numb, bloodied hands. 

“Is this you pissed off, John Wick?” Santino says.

“Yeah,” John nods, gulping air. “I’m pretty fucking pissed off.” 

The gun digs in deeper. “Then I absolve you. Get up, and stop wasting my fucking time.” 

 

They step over a mound of dead and dying men and Cassian kicks the door in. A woman screams and John thinks he hears swearing in Russian. 

A young voice from the inside: “Move, and you die. What the _fuck_. You’re the runt, right, Santino D’Antonio?” 

Santino says, “You always make me laugh, Iosef. You might as well let us in. Everyone’s dead outside. And for fuck’s sake, Rosalita, stop whimpering. Everyone told you not to marry the snot-nosed little prince.” 

A silence, heavy like the dead piled on the stoop. John keeps waiting for another bomb or something to come through the door, but there isn’t anything. Nothing comes. Even if it does, John thinks he can handle it, mostly.

Finally, Iosef Tarasov says, “You can come in.” 

It’s a nice house and reeks of money. John can practically smell it in the air. Iosef and Rosalita cling to each other crumpled on an expensive rug. Santino reaches into his pocket and tosses them his cell phone. Iosef reaches for it, and then hesitates. 

Cassian gestures, gun in hand, “Pick it up, go on.” 

“Call your old man, Iosef,” Santino says. “And tell him not to be so stupid for next time. We’ve ruined him once, we can do it again.” 

The phone rings and rings. The buzzing, loud and tinny, makes John’s head hurt. But Santino looks at him, and then the phone becomes white noise once more. “I’ll give you a fighting chance, John. Do you understand me?” 

John nods. He is content to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was a experiment more than anything, and halfway through, this became more of a story about John changing and accepting who he is. In some ways, I wanted the final scene to focus on John's acceptance of himself, who he is, and his changing relationship with Santino rather than anything bombastic taking away from the quiet moment. (And honestly, we know how this all ends anyway given these crazies.) 
> 
> There is a proper get-together epilogue based off this 'verse, but that keeps getting longer too so that's going to be posted as its own thing in the coming days as a sequel. Many thanks for reading :).


End file.
